430 AGRICULTURE. 



moment, amid all the pressing cares of public life, of his rural home, 

 or his favorite occupation. We can scarcely give a better idea of 

 the man and his system, than by the following extract, touching 

 this very portion of his life, from Sparks' admirable biography : 



" With his chief manager at Mount Vernon, he left full and mi- 

 nute directions in writing, and exacted from him a weekly report, 

 in which were registered the transactions of each day on all the 

 farms, such as the number of laborers employed, their health or 

 sickness, the kind and quantity of work executed, the progress in 

 planting, sowing or harvesting the fields, the appearance of the 

 crops at various stages of their growth, the effects of the weather 

 on them, and the condition of the horses, cattle and other live stock. 

 By these details, he was made perfectly acquainted with all that 

 was done, and could give his orders with almost as much precision 

 as if he had been on the spot. Once a week, regularly, and some- 

 times twice, he wrote to the manager, remarking on his report of 

 the preceding week, and giving new directions. These letters fre- 

 quently extended to two or three sheets, and were always written 

 with his own hand. Such was his laborious exactness, that the let- 

 ter he sent away was usually transcribed from a rough draft, and a 

 press copy was taken of the transcript, which was carefully filed 

 away with the manager's report, for his future inspection. In this 

 habit, he persevered with unabated diligence, through the whole 

 eight years of his Presidency, except during the short visits he oc- 

 casionally made to Mount Vernon, at the close of the sessions of 

 Congress, when his presence could be dispensed with at the seat of 

 government. He, moreover, maintained a large correspondence on 

 Agriculture with gentlemen in Europe and America. His letters to 

 Sir John Sinclair, Arthur Young and Dr. Anderson, have been 

 published, and are well known. Indeed his thoughts never seemed 

 to flow more freely, nor his pen move more easily, than when he was 

 writing on Agriculture, extolling it as a most attractive pursuit, and 

 describing the pleasure derived from it, and its superior claims, not 

 only on tlie practical economist, but on the statesman and philan- 



The volume before us, which Mr. Knight has given to the pub- 

 lic, in a very handsome quarto form, consists mainly of the corres- 



