[8] This chapter is taken from A Tour of America in 1798, 1799, and 1800, by Richard Parkinson, who has already been several times quoted.  Parkinson had won something of a name in England as a scientific agriculturist and had published a book called the Experienced Farmer.  He negotiated by letter with Washington for the rental of one of the Mount Vernon farms, and in 1798, without having made any definite engagement, sailed for the Potomac with a cargo of good horses, cattle and hogs.  His plan for renting Washington’s farm fell through, by his account because it was so poor, and ultimately he settled for a time near Baltimore, where he underwent such experiences as an opinionated Englishman with new methods would be likely to meet.  Soured by failure, he returned to England, and published an account of his travels, partly with the avowed purpose of discouraging emigration to America.  His opinion of the country he summed up thus:  “If a man should be so unfortunate as to have married a wife of a capricious disposition, let him take her to America, and keep her there three or four years in a country-place at some distance from a town, and afterwards bring her back to England; if she do not act with propriety, he may be sure there is no remedy.”  I have rearranged his account in such a way as to make it consecutive, but otherwise it stands as originally published.

He praised the soil very highly.  I asked him if he was acquainted with the land at Mount Vernon.  He said he was; and represented it to be rich land, but not so rich as his.  Yet his I thought very poor indeed; for it was (as is termed in America) gullied; which I call broken land.  This effect is produced by the winter’s frost and summer’s rain, which cut the land into cavities of from ten feet wide and ten feet deep (and upwards) in many places; and, added to this, here and there a hole, which makes it look altogether like marlpits, or stone-quarries, that have been carried away by those hasty showers in the summer, which no man who has not seen them in this climate could form any idea of or believe possible....

In two days after we left this place, we came in sight of Mount Vernon; but in all the way up the river, I did not see any green fields.  The country had to me a most barren appearance.  There were none but snake-fences; which are rails laid with the ends of one upon another, from eight to sixteen in number in one length.  The surface of the earth looked like a yellow-washed wall; for it had been a very dry summer; and there was not any thing that I could see green, except the pine trees in the woods, and the cedars, which made a truly picturesque view as we sailed up the Potomac.  It is indeed a most beautiful river.

When we arrived at Mount Vernon, I found that General Washington was at Philadelphia; but his steward[9] had orders from the General to receive me and my family, with all the horses, cattle, &c. which I had on board.  A boat was, therefore, got ready for landing them; but that could not be done, as the ship must be cleared out at some port before anything was moved:  so, after looking about a few minutes at Mount Vernon, I returned to the ship, and we began to make way for Alexandria....