PROFIT AND LOSS

A biographer whose opinions about Washington are usually sound concludes that the General was a failure as a farmer.  With this opinion I am unable to agree and I am inclined to think that in forming it he had in mind temporary financial stringencies and perhaps a comparison between Washington and the scientific farmers of to-day instead of the juster comparison with the farmers of that day.  For if Washington was a failure, then nine-tenths of the Southern planters of his day were also failures, for their methods and results were much worse than his.

It must be admitted, however, that comparatively little of his fortune, which amounted at his death to perhaps three-quarters of a million dollars, was made by the sale of products from his farm.  Few farmers have grown rich in that way.  Washington’s wealth was due in part to inheritance and a fortunate marriage, but most of all to the increment on land.  Part of this land he received as a reward for military services, but much of it he was shrewd enough to buy at a low rate and hold until it became more valuable.

The task of analyzing his fortune and income in detail is an impossible one for a number of reasons.  We do not have all the facts of his financial operations and even if we had there are other difficulties.  A farmer, unlike a salaried man, can not tell with any exactness what his true income is.  The salaried man can say, “This year I received four thousand dollars,” The farmer can only say—­if he is the one in a hundred who keeps accounts—­“Last year I took in two thousand dollars or five thousand dollars,” as the case may be.  From this sum he must deduct expenses for labor, wear and tear of farm machinery, pro rata cost of new tools and machinery, loss of soil fertility, must take into account the fact that some of the stock sold has been growing for one, two or more years, must allow for the butter and eggs bartered for groceries and for the value of the two cows he traded for a horse, must add the value of the rent of the house and grounds he and his family have enjoyed, the value of the chickens, eggs, vegetables, fruit, milk, meat and other produce of the farm consumed—­as he proceeds the problem becomes infinitely more complex until at last he gives it up as hopeless.

This much, however, is plain—­a farmer can handle much less money than a salaried man and yet live infinitely better, for his rent, much of his food and many other things cost him nothing.

In Washington’s case the problem is further complicated by a number of circumstances.  As a result of his marriage he had some money upon bond.  For his military services in the French war he received large grants of land and the payment during the Revolution of his personal expenses, and as President he had a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a year.