428 AGRICULTURE. 



tate. During the Revolution, although necessarily absent from 

 Mount Vernon, he endeavored to carry out his plans by frequent 

 and minute directions to his manager there. 



No sooner had the war closed, than Washington immediately 

 retired to his beloved Mount Vernon, and was soon deeply immersed 

 in the cares and pleasures of the life of an extensive landed propri- 

 etor. But it was by no means a life of indolent repose, though 

 upon an estate large enough to secure him in the possession of 

 every comfort. The very first year after the war, he directed his 

 attention and his energies to the improvement of the mode of farm- 

 ing then in vogue in the whole of that part of the country. 



He quickly remarked, that the system of the tobacco planters 

 was fast exhausting the lands, and rendering them of little or no 

 value. He entered into correspondence with the most distinguished 

 scientific agriculturists in Great Britain, studied the ablest treatises 

 then extant abroad on that subject, and immediately carried into 

 practice the most valuable principles which he could draw from the 

 soundest theory and practice then known. At a time when the 

 planters were thinking of abandoning their worn-out lands, Wash- 

 ington began a new and most excellent system of rotation of crops, 

 based on a careful examination of the qualities of the soils, on his 

 estate, and by substituting grains, grass, and root crops, for tobacco, 

 he soon restored the soil to good condition, and found his income 

 materially increasing, while his neighbors, who pursued the old sys- 

 tem, were daily growing poorer. 



Nothing was more remarkable, among the trials of this great 

 man's character, and nothing contributed more to his success in all 

 he undertook, than the complete manner in which he first mastered 

 his subject, and the exact method in which he afterwards marked 

 out and pursued his plans. 



In farming, this was evinced in the thoroughly systematic course 

 of culture which he adopted on his Mount Vernon estate. This 

 estate consisted of about 8000 acres, of which over 2000 acres, di- 

 vided into five farms, were under cultivation. On his map of this 

 estate, every field was numbered, and in his accompanying agricul- 

 tural field-book, the crops were assigned to each field for several 

 years in advance. So well had he studied the nature of the soils. 



