th, I got on horseback,
after breakfasting with the general--he was so attentive as to give me
the horse he rode, the day of my arrival, which I had greatly
commended--I found him as good as he is handsome; but above all,
perfectly well broke, and well trained, having a good mouth, easy in
hand, and stopping short in a gallop without bearing the bit--I mention
these minute particulars, because it is the general himself who breaks
all his own horses; and he is a very excellent and bold horseman,
leaping the highest fences, and going extremely quick, without standing
upon his stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse run
wild,--circumstances which young men look upon as so essential a part of
English horsemanship, that they would rather break a leg or an arm than
renounce them."

Comparatively few farmers in Virginia kept sheep, yet as early as 1758
Washington's overseer at Mount Vernon reported sixty-five old sheep and
forty-eight lambs; seven years later the total number was one hundred
fifty-six. The next year he records that he "put my English Ram Lamb to
65 Ewes," so that evidently he was trying to improve the breed. What
variety this ram belonged to he does not say. Near the end of his career
he had some of Bakewell's breed, an English variety that put on fat
rapidly and hence were particularly desirable for mutton.

During his long absences from home his sheep suffered grievously, for
sheep require a skilled care that few of his managers or overseers knew
how to give. But sheep were an important feature of the English
agriculture that he imitated, and he persisted in keeping them. In 1793
he had over six hundred.

"Before I left home in the spring of 1789," he wrote to Arthur Young, "I
had improved that species of my stock so much as to get 5-1/4 lbs of
Wool as the average of the fleeces of my whole flock,--and at the last
shearing they did not yield me 2-1/2 lbs.--By procuring (if I am able)
good rams and giving the necessary attention, I hope to get them up
again for they are with me, as you have declared them to be with you,
that part of my stock in which I most delight."

In 1789, by request, he sent Young "a fleece of a midling size and
quality." Young had this made up into cloth and returned it to
the General.

In 1793 we find our Farmer giving such instructions to Whiting as to
cull out the unthrifty sheep and transform them into mutton and to
choose a few of the best young males to keep as