The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
MONTICELLO / CONDITION
I find on a more minute examination of my lands than the short visits
heretofore made to them permitted, that a ten years' abandonment of
them to the ravages of overseers, has brought on them a degree of
degradation far beyond what I had expected. As this obliges me to
adopt a milder course of cropping, so I find that they have enabled me
to do it, by having opened a great deal of lands during my absence. I
have therefore determined on a division of my farm into six fields, to
be put under this rotation: first year, wheat; second, corn, potatoes,
peas; third, rye or wheat, according to circumstances; fourth and
fifth, clover where the fields will bring it, and buck-wheat dressings
where they will not; sixth, folding, and buckwheat dressings. But it
will take me from three to six years to get this plan under way. I am
not yet satisfied that my acquisition of overseers from the head of
Elk has been a happy one, or that much will be done this year towards
rescuing my plantations from their wretched condition. Time, patience
and perseverance must be the remedy; and the maxim of your letter, "slow
and sure," is not less a good one in agriculture than in
politics. I sincerely wish it may extricate us from the event of a
war, if this can be done saving our faith and our rights. My opini6n
of the British government is, that nothing will force them to do
justice but the loud voice of their people, and that this can never be
excited but by distressing their commerce. But I cherish tranquillity
too much, to suffer political things to enter my mind at all.
to Tench Coxe, 1 May 1794
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