The situation confronting “Farmer Washington” was this:  He had a great abundance of land, but most of it on his home estate was mediocre in quality.  Some of that lying at a distance was more fertile, but much of it was uncleared and that on the Ohio was hopelessly distant from a market.  With the exception of Mount Vernon even those plantations in Virginia east of the Blue Ridge could not be looked after in person.  He must either rent them, trust them to a manager, or allow them to lie idle.  Even the Mount Vernon land was distant from a good market, and the cost of transportation was so great that he must produce for selling purposes articles of little bulk compared with value.  Finally, he had an increasing number of slaves for whom food and clothing must be provided.

His answer to the problem of a money crop was for some years the old Virginia answer—­tobacco.  His far western lands he left for the most part untenanted.  Those plantations in settled regions but remote from his home he generally rented for a share of the crop or for cash.  The staple articles that he produced to feed the slaves were pork and corn, eked out by herring from the fishery.

From his accounts we find that in 1759 he made thirty-four thousand one hundred sixty pounds of tobacco; the next year sixty-five thousand thirty-seven pounds; in 1763, eighty-nine thousand seventy-nine pounds, which appears to have been his banner tobacco crop.  In 1765 the quantity fell to forty-one thousand seven hundred ninety-nine pounds; in 1771, to twenty-nine thousand nine hundred eighty-six pounds, and in 1773 to only about five thousand pounds.  Thereafter his crop of the weed was negligible, though we still find occasional references to it even as late as 1794, when he states that he has twenty-five hogsheads in the warehouses of Alexandria, where he has held it for five or six years because of low prices.

[Illustration:  Looking across part of Dogue Run Farm to “Woodlawn,” the Home of Nelly Custis Lewis]

[Illustration:  Gully on a Field of Union Farm, Showing Susceptibility to Erosion]

He tried to raise a good quality and seems to have concentrated on what he calls the “sweet scented” variety, but for some reason, perhaps because his soil was not capable of producing the best, he obtained lower prices than did some of the other Virginia planters, and grumbled at his agents accordingly.

He early realized the ruinous effects of tobacco on his land and sought to free himself from its clutches by turning to the production of wheat and flour for the West India market.  Ultimately he was so prejudiced against the weed that in 1789 we find him in a contract with a tenant named Gray, to whom he leased a tract of land for ten pounds, stipulating that Gray should make no more tobacco than he needed for “chewing and smoaking in his own family.”