1 6 AMERICAN FARMS. 



selves on being a rural aristocracy. Moreover, English 

 literature, in a marked degree, displays this peculiar 

 national trait, England's poets — Milton, Cowper, Spenser, 

 Gray, Shakespeare, Thomson, and Wordsworth — have 

 lauded in song the delights of rural life. 



In the early years of the American Republic, the ad- 

 vancement of agriculture was the first care of most 

 American statesmen, and many of them, such as Webster, 

 Clay, and Adams, found the peaceful pursuits of the 

 farm a wholesome change from the abstracting cares of 

 statesmanship. Thomas Jefferson invented the hill-side 

 plow. The first President Harrison and Abraham Lin- 

 coln were familiar with log-cabin life in their early days. 



Washington, however, who was inaugurated first Presi- 

 dent of the United States just one hundred years ago this 

 year (April 20, 1889), was, far above his compeers, the 

 great friend of American agriculture. This great man, 

 who led the armies of the Revolution, who was twice Presi- 

 dent, who " was by general consent the father of his 

 country," was more a farmer than soldier or politician. 

 In fact, husbandry was to him an occupation of the 

 highest order, and it seems to have been only the im- 

 perative demands of his country which drew him away 

 from his rural pursuits to the military or political arena. 



Immediately after the war of the Revolution, Washing- 

 ton retired to his estates in Virginia. About this time, 

 in a letter to Lafayette, he remarks : " I am become a 

 private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and under 

 the shadow of my own vine and fig-tree, free from the 

 bustle of camp, and the busy scenes of public life. I am 

 solacing myself with these tranquil enjoyments, of which 

 the soldier, who is ever in pursuit of fam'e ; the states- 



