Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-03-13
AN AGRICULTuRALE ENGINEER,

The historical fact is well known that
George Washington, when a young man,
surveyed wild land for Lord Fairfax, and in
after years spilled, very successfully, the
principles of scientific engineering to his
own plantations of ten thousand acres lying
on the broad and beautiful Potomac, on
tide water. That he possessed mathe-
NAUTICAL turn of mind, and used arithmetic
in all farming operations more than is COM
mon in our own time, after the lapse of one
hundred years, with the schoolmaster
abroad in the land, may be seen in the
following statement of his biographer,
Washington Irving: Throughout all his
campaigns General Washington had kept
himself informed of the course of rural af-
fairs at Mount Vernon. By means Of
maps, on which every field was laid
down and numbered, he was enabled to
give directions for their several cultivation,
and receive an account of their liberal crops.
No hurry Of affairs prevented correspon-
dencs with his overseer, and he exacted
weekly reports. Thus his rural were inter
woven with his military cares; the sgricul-
turist was mingled with the soldier; and
those strong sympathies with the honest
cultivators of the soil, and that paternal
care of their interests to be noted through
out bis military career, may be ascribed in
a great measure to the sweetening infu-
ence of Mount Vernon" One less gifted
than Irving, living in the enjoyment of all
the charms of rural life on the banks of the
Hudson, could not fully appreciate "the
sweeteniDg influence" of scientific agricul-
tu-e on the farmer General who led
the armies Of thirteen colonies to
victory, and the people to ma
tional independence. The Agricultural
engineer was tried eight years in war, to
contend with generals of military science
and large experience, backed by a govern
ment of boundless resources; tried eight
years as the first President OF the United
States, and without neglecting any public
duty, no field mapped on his ten plantations
of 1000 acres each ever escaped proper at
tention. System is science. Washington had
the best fruit of science, often doubtless Civ
ing it different paternity, Farmers who
think that they have no time DOR opportu-
nifty to make desirable improvements,
should study the Mount Vernon maps of
ten thousand acres made BY self educated
man, who was absent many years in the
service of bis country. System in every
thing enabled Washington to exc
cute we'll an incredible amount Of labor.
In letter addressed to Sir John Sin lair
dated July 10, 1875, he said: "From the
first intimation you were pleased to give
me of the institution, British Board of Ag-
riculture,] | conceived the most favorable
ideas Of its utility, and the more have
seen and reflected on the plan since, the
more convinced am of its importance in
national point of view, Lot only to your
own country, but to all others who are not
too much attached to old and bad habits to
forsake them, and to new countries that are
just beginning to form systems for the i'm
provement of their husbandry."
Washington was a firm believer in the
doctrine of agricultural progress. "Old and
bad habits" should be 'tforsaken." "New
systems for the improvement Of husbandry"
were to be formed. Indeed, the repudia-
tor Of the monarchical and aristocratic |
system of government in the mother coun-
try-a thorough political reformer-could |
hardly be less than an earnest, working re-
former of our colonial land-kiiling way of
planting. Strange to say, Washlngton's |
"national views for the improvement of |
American agriculture" although based on
close observation as large and successful |
farmer on much study of the subject, and
on correspondence with men of
eminence in Europe, have never been
adopted by Congress, nor by |
the Legislature of any State. A map of
every field and record of its every crop,
enable the owner of the es ate to credit |
each field with what it produces, and
charge it with all the landplas!er, bone |
dust, wood ashes, lime, sws mp muck or
yard manure, it may receive as fertilizers. |
Should not an intelligent Christian people |