ration: Looking across part of Dogue Run Farm to "Woodlawn," the
Home of Nelly Custis Lewis]

[Illustration: Gully on a Field of Union Farm, Showing Susceptibility to
Erosion]

He tried to raise a good quality and seems to have concentrated on
what he calls the "sweet scented" variety, but for some reason, perhaps
because his soil was not capable of producing the best, he obtained
lower prices than did some of the other Virginia planters, and grumbled
at his agents accordingly.

He early realized the ruinous effects of tobacco on his land and sought
to free himself from its clutches by turning to the production of wheat
and flour for the West India market. Ultimately he was so prejudiced
against the weed that in 1789 we find him in a contract with a tenant
named Gray, to whom he leased a tract of land for ten pounds,
stipulating that Gray should make no more tobacco than he needed for
"chewing and smoaking in his own family."

Late in life he decided that his land was not congenial to corn, in
which he was undoubtedly right, for the average yield was only about
fifteen bushels per acre. In the corn country farmers now often produce
a hundred. He continued to raise corn only because it was essential for
his negroes and hogs. In 1798 he contracted with William A. Washington
to supply him with five hundred barrels annually to eke out his own
crop. Even this quantity did not prove sufficient, for we find him next
year trying to engage one hundred barrels more.

Before this time his main concern had come to be to conserve his soil
and he had turned his attention largely to grass and live stock. Of
these matters more hereafter.

CHAPTER V

THE STUDENT OF AGRICULTURE

Washington took great pains to inform himself concerning any subject in
which he was interested and hardly was he settled down to serious
farming before he was ordering from England "the best System now extant
of Agriculture," Shortly afterward he expressed a desire for a book
"lately published, done by various hands, but chiefly collected from the
papers of Mr. Hale. If this is known to be the best, pray send it, but
not if any other is in high esteem." Another time he inquires for a
small piece in octavo, "a new system of Agriculture, or a speedy way to
grow rich."

Among his papers are preserved long and detailed notes laboriously taken
from such works as Tull's _Horse-Hoeing Husbandry_, Duhamel's _A
Practical Treatise of Husbandry, The Far