red to keep a certain chronologic order; and upon this wet
morning I find myself embayed among those old gentlemen who lived in the
latter part of the eighteenth century. George III. is tottering under
his load of royalty; the French Revolution is all asmoke. Fox and
Sheridan and Burke and the younger Pitt are launching speeches at this
Gallic tempest of blood,--each in his own way. Our American struggle for
liberty has been fought bravely out; and the master of it has retired to
his estates upon the Potomac. There, in his house at Mount Vernon, he
receives one day a copy of the early volumes of Young's "Annals of
Agriculture," with the author's compliments, and the proffer of his
services to execute orders for seeds, implements, cattle, or "anything
else that might contribute to the General's rural amusements."

The General, in his good old-fashioned way, returns the compliments with
interest, and says, "I will give you the trouble, Sir, of providing and
sending to the care of Wakelin Welch, of London, merchant, the following
articles:--

"Two of the simplest and best-constructed ploughs for land which is
neither very heavy nor sandy; to be drawn by two horses; to have spare
shares and coulters; and a mould, on which to form new irons, when the
old ones are worn out, or will require repairing. I will take the
liberty to observe, that, some years ago, from a description or a
recommendation thereof which I had somewhere met with, I sent to England
for what was then called the Rotherham or patent plough; and, till it
began to wear and was ruined by a bungling country-smith, that no plough
could have done better work, or appeared to have gone easier with two
horses; but, for want of a mould, which I neglected to order with the
plough, it became useless after the irons which came with it were much
worn.

"A little of the best kind of cabbage seed for field-culture.

"Twenty pounds of the best turnip seed.

"Ten bushels of sainfoin seed.

"Eight bushels of the winter vetches.

"Two bushels of rye-grass seed.

"Fifty pounds of hop-clover seed."

The curious reader may be interested to know that this shipment of
goods, somewhat injured by stowage in the hold of the vessel, reached
Mount Vernon just one week after Washington had left it to preside over
the sittings of the Constitutional Convention. And amidst all the
eagerness of those debates under which the ark of our nationality was
being hammered into shape, this