he rails, three or four feet from the ground, turning
themselves sidewise. These hogs suffer such hardships as no other animal
could endure. It is customary to keep them in the woods all winter, as
there is no thrashing or fold-yards; and they must live on the roots of
trees, or something of that sort, but they are poor beyond any creature
that I ever saw. That is probably the cause why American pork is so
fine. They are something like forest-sheep. I am not certain, with
American keeping and treatment, if they be not the best: for I never saw
an animal live without food, except this; and I am pretty sure they
nearly do that. When they are fed, the flesh may well be sweet: it is
all young, though the pig be ten years old."

"The aim of the farmers in this country (if they can be called
farmers)," wrote Washington to Arthur Young in 1791, "is, not to make
the most they can from the land, which is or has been cheap, but the
most of the labour, which is dear; the consequence of which has been,
much ground has been _scratched_ over and none cultivated or improved as
it ought to have been: whereas a farmer in England, where land is dear,
and labour cheap, finds it his interest to improve and cultivate highly,
that he may reap large crops from a small quantity of ground."

No clearer statement of the differences between American and European
agriculture has ever been formulated. Down to our own day the object of
the American farmer has continued to be the same--to secure the largest
return from the expenditure of a given amount of labor. But we are on
the threshold of a revolution, the outcome of which means intensive
cultivation and the realization of the largest possible return from a
given amount of land.

That Washington saw the distinction so clearly is of itself sufficient
proof that he pondered long and deeply upon agricultural problems.

CHAPTER IV

WASHINGTON'S PROBLEM

"No estate in United America," wrote Washington to Arthur Young in 1793,
"is more pleasantly situated than this. It lies in a high, dry, and
healthy country, 300 miles by water from the sea, and, as you will see
by the plan, on one of the finest rivers in the world. Its margin is
washed by more than ten miles of tide water; from the beds of which and
the innumerable coves, inlets, and small marshes, with which it abounds,
an inexhaustible fund of mud may be drawn as a manure, either to be used
separately or in a compost....

"The soil