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WASHINGTON, THE FARMER. 



A KEVIEW. 



LETTERS ON AGRICULTURE, from His Excellency GEORGE WASHINGTON, to AR- 

 THUR YOUNG and Sir JOHN SINCLAIR, etc. Edited by FRANKLIN KNIGHT. 

 Washington, 1847. Published by the Editor. New-York, Baker & 

 Scribner. 1 vol. quarto, with plates, 198 pp. 



FOR a long time, the halo of Washington's civil and military 

 glory has kept out of view his extraordinary talent in other di- 

 rections. Mankind, too, are so reluctant to allow great men the 

 meed of greatness in more than one sphere of action, that there has, 

 we think, always been a national want of faith regarding the pre- 

 eminence as an agriculturist, to which Washington is most unde- 

 niably entitled. 



We are inclined to think that, considering the great disadvan- 

 tages of the time in which he lived, he was one of the wisest, most 

 successful, and most scientific farmers that America has ever yet 

 produced. 



Washington, as it is well known, was a very large landed pro- 

 prietor. Before the Revolution, he was one of the most extensive 

 tobacco planters in Virginia. His crops of this staple, he shipped 

 in his own name, to Liverpool or Bristol, loading the vessels that 

 came up the Potomac, either at Mount Vernon, or some other con- 

 venient point. In return, he imported from his agents abroad, im- 

 proved agricultural implements, and all the better kinds of clothing, 

 implements, and stores, needed in the domestic economy of his es- 



