Qi[)t JTarmcr's itlonililu bisiior. 



53 



EDITORS' MEMOKANUUM. 

 A crop of corn in the District ol Columbia. 



Tliu c.-ipacity ol' the soil in jiikI iilioiit tijc. ciiy 

 or VVasliiiifrloii is (Irinonstriiicil in nil c.X|ieiiiiic'iit 

 111" Ml-. Mickey, a Clerk in llie offii-e of llie t?ec,- 

 retju-y of the United Stales Senate, who resides 

 nho'Jt ino miles li-o:n the Cipitol, neai- iha turn- 

 pike road leadiii;;- to JJIad-'iishnrir. Mr. H. has 

 u family of slaves hy whom, overlooked hy an 

 Iri.-ilunan, his lahor is performed. The last year, 

 instead of pnrsuiiij; the old prartir e and i;"'"o 

 over some twenty acres to be planted in Ijidian 

 corn prodneini; at the rate of two to three harrels 

 to the aere, jiiTprepared and planted only fonr 

 acres. This I md he manured at the I'alo of ahont 

 l-<;0 small horse cart loaiU to the acre, plonirhiii.-r 

 the sfromnl more than once until it was well pul- 

 verized. The jrroniid was fnrrosved in rows iit 

 four feet distance, and the hills in the rows were 

 snllereil to stand two feet apart with three stalks 

 ill a hill. A practical liinnerofthe neinhhorhood 

 is of opinion that the crop would have heen 

 )ar;jer if there had heen two instead of three 

 hlades in a hill. The corn in Maryland is ol 

 mnch hikdier and larjrer growth than the New 

 En^'land corn, and recpiires a less nninber of 

 blades and a fxrealer distance to the hills. In the 

 lighter lands they have only a sinsjle hiado to the 

 hill, nnr the hills fonr feet distant — in the lietter 

 lands nvo blades at the same distance. Mr. Mick- 

 ey's field was tiiree hlades at only two feel one 

 way and I'mw feet the other. Mad not the season 

 been prcnliarly tiivnrahle tiir corn, .Mr. !l. now 

 tiiiiiks his crop would have heen n faihn-o from 

 the too i;reat nnmher and coniiifuity of the hlades. 

 Bui his crop turned out to he an nnconiinon one 

 — "^Si barrels of shelled corn, (tive bushels lo the 

 barn;!,) on one aere, and 20 barrels to thearre on 

 the thri.'c other acres^niaking his whole crop 

 iVih hushels. 



Tlic largest [n'odncin;: acre was upon a yoinijr 

 apple orchard, which had but now commenced 

 beariu:!, and produced besides the corn wiih the 

 growth of the trees about tan bushels of choice 

 apples. It may be readily t>erceived that the fonr 

 aeres of ground is now in a condiiion lo produce 

 double and perhaps treble crops without furllier 

 niannrinn; from three to five years. Mow great 

 must be the gain of capiuil and labor expended 

 on such iin|noved ciiilivation. 



The TiHnd of Washington. His zeal for Agri- 

 cultur.Tl iinprnvenients. His farms on the 

 Potomac. Jt;migration to Fairfax. 



It is now nearly ninety years si.nce George 

 Washington came into the ownership and posses- 

 sion of the estates at Mount Vernon. At that 

 distance of lime those qslatcs were in their high- 

 est position of value and production. Tobacco, 

 the great source of wealth to the first Virginia 

 planters, was the surplus article produced |p-om 

 the Washington estates, and this those estates as 

 early as 1759 yielded in such qnanlilies that 

 Washiii'iton himself shipjied the production of 

 his own firms directly to Europe on his own ac- 

 count, consigning it to a coinmission nierehanl. 

 All his arlicles of lu.xury and most of those fur 

 family convenience, whether of .apparel or food, 

 were imported directly lioni England. As a sam- 

 ple of the princely style in which a Virginia plan- 

 ter lived eighty-five years ago, we subjoin an or- 

 der for goods sent out by George Washington 

 soon after bis marriage willi Tdrs. Cuslis. This 

 lady, yonng anil beautiful at the time of her mar- 

 riage to a .second husband, was then the mother 

 of two (•hihlren by her liirmer husband ; and in 

 virliiB of the first connexioiv, inherited wiih her 

 two children large esiates lower down in Virgin- 

 ia : beside these estates it is nienlioned that she 

 had sonic hunilred thousand dollars in ready 

 money. Her property was kept separate from 

 that which Washington owned in person : some 

 of her properly consisted of slock in the bank of 

 England. 



The quantity of tobacco .shipped from his own 

 est.ates, .is incidentally appears from his corres- 

 pondence, in one season was seventy hogsheads, 

 and tliat from the Custis estates on York and 

 J. lines rivers, about fifty hoirsheads. 



Wasbiiis;toii's estates consisted of five farms 

 upon the Potomac and of a plantation in the val- 

 ley of the Slienaniloab some si.xty miles distant. 

 He had besides large tracts upon the Ohio ami 

 Kenahwa riveis. Without describing the She- 

 nandotih lands he represents thetn to be better 



than those near bis residence upon the I'otomac ; 

 hut we have Irom under his own band a particu- 

 lar ilescription of the st.ite and coiiditien of his 

 estates in the county of Fuirl'a.\, with a map ol 

 their position. 



Diigiie run farm consisted of 650 acres of clear- 

 ed laml, divided into seven tillage fields of 75 

 acr(!S each, and in six fii.dds oi' meadow or mow- 

 ing land, averaging ahont twenty acres each: ill 

 17y.'3 this farm bad a single building of one room 

 on the door and one above for the overlooker, 

 with huts sufiicient fiir covering for liirty odd ne- 

 groes. This farm is situated upon the lowlands 

 of Dogiie creek, a small stream emptying into 

 the I'otoniac, at the south-west point of \Vash- 

 inglon's lands. 



On the north-east side of Doguc creek and bor- 

 dering the Potomac southerly from Mount Vernon, 

 is situated the Union Farm containing Md acres 

 of cleared la'id, divided into seven tillage fields 

 of idiout l'J5 acres each — a meadow lot of 42 — 

 anoiher (d' S.l acres, and a clover lot of 20 acres. 

 On this farm Washington in 17'J3 had "a newly 

 erected brick barn, perhaps superior to any in 

 America ;" anil he built a new house for the over- 

 looker of two rooms sixteen by eighteen feet on 

 the floor, and two above— with buildings for the 

 covering and accommod:ilioii of fifty odil negroes. 

 .Above the two above ilescribed upon the west 

 side of the Potomac and hnrderiiig on the North 

 Lillle Hunting Creek, another stream cnipt\ing 

 into the Potomac is the Mansion House liirm 

 surromiding the beautiful position of the family 

 residence ol Washington. The size of the clear- 

 ed fields of this liiriii is not given in U'ashing- 

 ton's description : apparently upon the ni!ip it 

 would seem to he aliout 500 acres. It should he 

 kept in mind that this and all the farms are sur- 

 rounded by forest, cleared mostly of its principal 

 timber, but still growing in wood; this woodland 

 is generally higher and lighter land than that 

 cleared for the several farms. 



Norili of the Dogue farm upon the sources of 

 the Dogue run creek is the Muddy Hole Farm, 

 consisting of eight tillage fields of from 52 to 80 

 acres each, and a clover lot of 20 acres, in the 

 whole 476 acres cleared ; a hotise for the over- 

 looker, with covering for thirty negroes, and "a 

 tolerably good barn with stables for the work hor- 

 ses" were upon this ifionnd. 



Still faiilier north nearer to Alexandria and 

 separated from the others by Litile Mnnting Creek 

 lies the River larni : this farm contained in 1793 

 1207 acres of ploughable land — had tni overlook- 

 er's house of one large and two small rooms, be- 

 low and one or two above — sufiicient covering 

 for fifiy or sixty negroes — a larue barn and stables 

 gone much to decay. It consisted of seven fields 

 of arable of about 120 acres each — a pasture of 

 112 — orchards 84, and clover lots of 32 acres. 



The four farms were particularly described 

 from an actual survey by Washington himself — 

 in a letter written lo the celebrated Arthur Young, 

 an eminent [i.itroii of British Agriculture with 

 whom Washington corresponded fijr several 

 years. The letter is dated Dec. 12, 1793, at Phil- 

 adelphia, soon nfcer the commencement of llie 

 first Congress in Washington's second term for 

 the Presidency. Then engrossed in public busi- 

 ness, the illustrious hero and statesman was at 

 that time anxious to lease his four mitside farms 

 lor a term of years; and to enable his correspon- 

 dent to invite English practical f irmers to come 

 to this country, he is [)articnlar in his survey .and 

 description of the four fariii.s. The whole con- 

 tained 3260 acres; hut adding the Mansion farm 

 and the adjacent woodlands the whole tract of 

 country belon^'iug to him upon the Potomac em- 

 braced some 10,000 acres.. lie offers to let these 

 fiu'ir.s from .seven to leu year.s, at the rate of a 

 Spanish milted dollar per ye;ir for every plough- 

 able and mowable acre, and will .allow the len^ 

 ants lo take fiiel fi'oin the adjacent wooillatids, 

 and to keep the buildings and fences in order. 



Washington ihus describes these lands: "No 

 estate in America is more pleasantly siliiateil than 

 this. It is in a hiiili, dry, and healthy country, 

 three hundred miles by water from the sea, and, 

 as yon will see by the plan, on one of the finest 

 rivers in the world. Its margin is washed by 

 more ilian ten miles of tide water ; /;om llie bed 

 of wliich, anil the innumernhlc coves, inlets, arid small 

 mnrshe.t, with u-hicli it uhounds, an ineihauslalite 

 fund of lich mud may be drawn, as a manure, either 

 to be vsed separately, or in a compost, according h) 



the judgment of the farmer. It is situated in a lai- 

 itude between the extremes of heat and cold, and 

 is the same distance by land and by water, with 

 good roails [bad now IJ and the best iiiivigation, 

 to and from the Federal City, Alexandria and 

 (jcorgelown; distant lioni the first, twelve, from 

 the second, nine, and (roin the l.-ist sixteen miles. 

 The Federal Cily in 1800 will become the seat 

 of the general government of the Lhiited States. 

 It is increasing last in buildings, and rising into 

 consei|iicnce ; and will I have no doubt, from the 

 advantage given it by nature, and its proximity to 

 a rich interior country, and the Western territory, 

 become the eniporiuni of the United States." 



Washin^'ton's (irediction in relaiion lo the trad,; 

 and business of the Federal City seem not yet to 

 luue been verified; yet, after siiuggliiig for near, 

 ly half a century with the .-idvantagcs which ih e 

 federal government have brought along, Wash- 

 ington as a city is growing into permanency and 

 beauty. The d.iy must be far distant when she 

 can compete in wealth and business with other 

 great cities of the couiury. Nothing, liowever, 

 can so niiiidi contribute to her growth, as iheag- 

 ricnhnral renovation of the worn out lands around 

 her; and in no part of America does the count- 

 ry alforil a better prospect of gain to improved 

 cultivation than in the healthy grounds within 

 twenty miles of the cily, which have been worn 

 out by continual exhaustion. 



Washington continues: "The soil of the tract 

 of which 1 have been speaking, is a good loani, 

 inclined however to clay than sand. From use, 

 and 1 might add abuse, it is become more and 

 more consolidated, and of course heavier to work. 

 The greater part is a greyish clay; some part is 

 a dark mould; a very little inclined lo sand ; and 

 scarcely any to stone. A husbandman's wish 

 would not lay the farms more level than they are ; 

 and yet some of the fields, but in no great degree, 

 are washed into gnllie-s, from which all of them 

 have not as yet been recovered. 



"This river, which encompasses the land the 

 distance above mentioned, is well supplied wiili 

 various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year; 

 and in the spring with the greatest profiision of 

 shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, &c. 

 Several valuable fisheries iippertain to the es- 

 tate ; the w hole shore, in short, is one entire fish- 

 ery." 



Washington, as early as 1785, looked to the 

 renovating system of husbandry as the only sal- 

 v.ation of the soil of his farms. Previous to that 

 time he had been absent in the service of the 

 country fiir nearly eight years, having visited his ~ 

 fivorite Mount Vernon in all the time only twice. 

 The cultivation was much neglected, and the sac- 

 rifice in the vahio of his cultivated lands must 

 have been great. That he soon turned his atten- 

 tion to renovating the land is evident; for in one 

 of his letters in 1785 to Levi Hollingsworlh lie 

 writes — "I have long heen convinced that the 

 bed of the Potomac liefore my door contains an 

 inexhauslahle fund of manure; and that if I could 

 adopt an easy, simple and expeditious method of 

 raising, and taking it to the land, it might be con- 

 verted to useful |)urposes." At this time he writes 

 for information respecting the operation of an 

 instrument the model of which had been sent 

 him hy a Mr. Donaldson ; with this inslriinient 

 he wished lo raise the mud from a depth of from 

 four to eight feet iiuder water. 



The amount of cultivation at the Mount Ver- 

 non farms was immense, as would lie consider- 

 ed hy any New England farmer. Two or llireo 

 himdred slaves of both sexes were employed, and 

 the necessary subsistence of these would con- 

 sume a large amount of products. It was com- 

 mon to put in GOO or 800 acres of wdieal in a year 

 — half as many acres of Indian corn — an equal 

 amount ol' potatoes. Atlenipts were made to 

 keep the land in heart by the use of buck-wheat 

 and clover ploughed in and other expedients. A 

 Ifuge number of cattle and hogs and sheep were 

 kept upon the farms. Something like nyenty to 

 twenty-five ploughs were kept in motion : the 

 mildness of the cliiiiato here favors planting a 

 much longer time than in New-England. 



Again it must be evident that the farms snfler- 

 ed by the absence of Washington a great part of 

 the time at New York and Philadel|)hia in iho 

 discharge of his jiublic duties as President from 

 the year 1788 to the year 1796; and from this 

 fact resulted his anxiety to lease them for a term 

 of years. 



