mer's Compleat Guide,_ Home's
_The Gentleman Farmer_, and volumes of Young's _Annals of Agriculture_.

The abstracts from the _Annals_ were taken after the Revolution and
probably before he became President, for the first volume did not appear
until 1784. From the handwriting it is evident that the digests of
Tull's and Duhamel's books were made before the Revolution and probably
about 1760. In the midst of the notes on chapter eight of the _Compleat
Guide_ there are evidences of a long hiatus in time--Mr. Fitzpatrick of
the manuscript division of the Library of Congress thinks perhaps as
much as eight or ten years. A vivid imagination can readily conceive
Washington's laying aside the task for the more important one of
vindicating the liberties of his countrymen and taking it up again only
when he had sheathed the sword. But all we can say is that for some
reason he dropped the work for a considerable time, the evidence being
that the later handwriting differs perceptibly from that which
precedes it.

As most of Washington's agricultural ideas were drawn from these books,
it is worth while for us to examine them. I have not been able to put my
hands on Washington's own copies, but in the library of the Department
of Agriculture I have examined the works of Tull, Duhamel and Young.

Tull's _Horse-Hoeing Husbandry_ was an epoch-making book in the history
of English agriculture. It was first published in 1731 and the third
edition, the one I have seen and probably the one that Washington
possessed, appeared in 1751. Possibly it was the small piece in octavo,
"a new system of Agriculture, or a speedy way to grow rich" concerning
which he wrote to his agent. It deals with a great variety of subjects,
such as of roots and leaves, of food of plants, of pasture, of plants,
of weeds, of turnips, of wheat, of smut, of blight, of St. Foin, of
lucerne, of ridges, of plows, of drill boxes, but its one great thesis
was the careful cultivation by plowing of such annuals as potatoes,
turnips, and wheat, crops which hitherto had been tended by hand or left
to fight their battle unaided after having once been planted.

Duhamel's book was the work of a Frenchman whose last name was Monceau.
It was based in part upon Tull's book, but contained many reflections
suggested by French experience as well as some additions made by the
English translator. The English translation appeared in 1759, the year
of Washington's marriage. It dealt wit