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XV.

chancellor's duty consisted chiefly in suggesting and ap- CHAPTER proving measures for the management of the college, and in recommending professors and teachers to fill vacancies in the departments of instruction.

The acts of charity by which he contributed from his private means to foster education were not few nor small. During many years, he gave fifty pounds annually for the instruction of indigent children in Alexandria; and by will he left a legacy of four thousand dollars, the net income of which was to be used for the same benevolent object for ever. Two or three instances are known, in which he offered to pay the expenses of young men through their collegiate course. When General Greene died, he proposed to take under his protection one of the sons of his departed friend, pay the charges of his education, and bring him forward into life. Fortunately the circumstances, in which General Greene left his family, rendered this act of munificence and paternal care unnecessary. Other examples might be cited; and, from his cautious habit of concealing from the world his deeds of charity, it may be presumed many others are unknown, in which his heart and his hand were open to the relief of indigent merit.

The Countess of Huntington, celebrated for her religious enthusiasm and liberal charities, formed a scheme for civilizing and Christianizing the North American Indians. Being a daughter of the Earl of Ferrers, who was descended through the female line from a remote branch of the Washington family, she claimed relationship to General Washington, and wrote to him several letters respecting her project of benevolence and piety in America. It was her design to form, at her own charge, in the neighborhood of some of the Indian tribes, a settlement of industrious emigrants, who, by their example and habits, should gradually introduce among them the arts of civilization; and missionaries were to teach them the principles of Christianity. Lady Huntington proposed, that the government of the United States should grant

1785.

Donation for

the educa

tion of indi

gent chil

dren.

Favors the
Huntington

plan of Lady

for civilizing

the Indians.

CHAPTER

XV.

1785.

His farming operations.

a tract of wild lands upon which her emigrants and missionaries should establish themselves. A scheme, prompted by motives so pure, and founded on so rational a basis, gained at once the approbation and countenance of Washington. He wrote to the President of Congress, and to the governors of some of the States, expressing favorable sentiments of Lady Huntington's application. Political and local reasons interfered to defeat the plan. In the first place, it was thought doubtful whether a colony of foreigners settled on the western frontier, near the English on one side and the Spaniards on the other, would in the end prove conducive to the public tranquillity. And, in the next place, the States individually had ceded all their wild lands to the Union, and Congress were not certain that they possessed power to grant any portion of the new territory for such an object. Hence the project was laid aside, although Washington offered to facilitate it as far as he could on a smaller scale, by allowing settlers to occupy his own lands, and be employed according to Lady Huntington's views.

In the spring of 1785, he was engaged for several weeks in planting his grounds at Mount Vernon with trees and shrubs. To this interesting branch of husbandry he had devoted considerable attention before the war, and during that period he had endeavored to carry out his plans of improvement. In some of his letters from camp, he gave minute directions to his manager for removing and planting trees; but want of skill and other causes prevented these directions from being complied with, except in a very imperfect manner. The first year after the war, he applied himself mainly to farming operations, with the view of restoring his neglected fields and commencing a regular system of practical agriculture. He gradually abandoned the cultivation of tobacco, which exhausted his lands, and substituted wheat and grass, as better suited to the soil, and in the aggregate more profitable. He began a new method of rotation of crops, in which he studied the particular qualities of the soil in

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XV.

1785.

the different parts of his farms, causing wheat, maize, po- CHAPTER tatoes, oats, grass, and other crops to succeed each other in the same field at stated times. So exact was he in this method, that he drew out a scheme in which all his fields were numbered, and the crops assigned to them for several years in advance. It proved so successful, that he pursued it to the end of his life, with occasional slight deviations by way of experiment.

planting his

Mount Ver

Having thus arranged and systematized his agricultural Occupied in operations, he now set himself at work in earnest to ex- grounds at ecute his purpose of planting and adorning the grounds non. around the mansion-house. In the direction of the left wing, and at a considerable distance, was a vegetable garden; and on the right, at an equal distance, was another garden for ornamental shrubs, plants, and flowers. Between these gardens, in front of the house, was a spacious lawn, surrounded by serpentine walks. Beyond the gardens and lawn were the orchards. Very early in the spring he began with the lawn, selecting the choicest trees from the woods on his estates, and transferring them to the borders of the serpentine walks, arranging them in such a manner as to produce symmetry and beauty in the general effect, intermingling in just proportions forest tress, evergreens, and flowering shrubs. He attended personally to the selection, removal, and planting of every tree; and his Diary, which is very particular from day to day through the whole process, proves that he engaged in it with intense interest, and anxiously watched each tree and shoot till it showed signs of renewed growth. Such trees as were not found on his own lands, he obtained from other parts of the country, and at length his design was completed according to his wishes.

The orchards, gardens, and green-houses were next replenished with all the varieties of rare fruit-trees, vegetables, shrubs, and flowering plants, which he could procure. This was less easily accomplished; but, horticulture being with him a favorite pursuit, he continued during

His gardens

and or

chards.

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