Spaces were wide in a country where one great landowner, Lord Fairfax, held no less than five million acres.Houses lay isolated and remote and a gentleman dining out would sometimes drive his elaborate equipage from twenty to fifty miles.There was a tradition of lavish hospitality, of gallant men and fair women, and sometimes of hard and riotous living.Many of the houses were, however, in a state of decay, with leaking roofs, battered doors and windows and shabby furniture.To own land in Virginia did not mean to live in luxurious ease.Land brought in truth no very large income.It was easier to break new land than to fertilize that long in use.An acre yielded only eight or ten bushels of wheat.In England the land was more fruitful.One who was only a tenant on the estate of Coke of Norfolk died worth 150,000 pounds, and Coke himself had the income of a prince.When Washington died he was reputed one of the richest men in America and yet his estate was hardly equal to that of Coke's tenant.
Washington was a good farmer, inventive and enterprising, but he had difficulties which ruined many of his neighbors.Today much of his infertile estate of Mount Vernon would hardly grow enough to pay the taxes.When Washington desired a gardener, or a bricklayer, or a carpenter, he usually had to buy him in the form of a convict, or of a negro slave, or of a white man indentured for a term of years.Such labor required eternal vigilance.The negro, himself property, had no respect for it in others.He stole when he could and worked only when the eyes of a master were upon him.If left in charge of plants or of stock he was likely to let them perish for lack of water.Washington's losses of cattle, horses, and sheep from this cause were enormous.The neglected cattle gave so little milk that at one time Washington, with a hundred cows, had to buy his butter.Negroes feigned sickness for weeks at a time.A visitor noted that Washington spoke to his slaves with a stern harshness.No doubt it was necessary.The management of this intractable material brought training in command.If Washington could make negroes efficient and farming pay in Virginia, he need hardly be afraid to meet any other type of difficulty.
