4* The Agricultural Papers of George Washington 



self of your kind offer ; but, should you find, in the course of 

 our correspondence, that I am likely to become troublesome, 

 you can easily check me. Enclosed I give you an order upon 

 Wakelin Welch for the cost of such things as you may have 

 the goodness to send me. I do not, at this time, ask for 

 any other implements of husbandry than the plough; but 

 when I have read your &quot; Annals &quot; (for they are but just come 

 to hand), I may request more. In the meantime, permit me 

 to ask what a good ploughman may be had for at annual 

 wages; to be found (being a single man) in board, lodging, 

 and washing? The writers upon husbandry estimate the hire 

 of laborers so differently in England, that it is not easy to 

 discover from them, whether one of the class I am speaking 

 of would cost eight or eighteen pounds a year. A good 

 ploughman at low wages would come very opportunely with 

 the plough I have requested. 



By means of the application to my friend, Mr. Fairfax 

 of Bath, and through the medium of Mr. Rack, a bailiff is 

 sent to me, who, if he is acquainted with the best courses of 

 cropping, will answer my purposes as a director or superin 

 tendent of my farms. He has the appearance of a plain hon 

 est farmer; is industrious, and from the character given 

 him by a Mr. Peacy, with whom he has lived many years, is 

 understanding in the management of stock, and of most 

 matters for which he is employed. How far his abilities 

 may be equal to a pretty extensive concern, is questionable. 

 And, what is still worse, he has come over with improper 

 ideas ; for, instead of preparing his mind for a ruinous course 

 of cropping, exhausted lands, and numberless inconveniences 

 into which we had been thrown by an eight years war, he 

 seems to have expected, that he was coming to well-organized 

 farms, and that he was to meet ploughs, harrows, and all 

 the different implements of husbandry, in as high a state as 



