Of Washington’s skill as a trainer of horses his friend De Chastellux writes thus:  “The weather being fair, on the 26th, I got on horseback, after breakfasting with the general—­he was so attentive as to give me the horse he rode, the day of my arrival, which I had greatly commended—­I found him as good as he is handsome; but above all, perfectly well broke, and well trained, having a good mouth, easy in hand, and stopping short in a gallop without bearing the bit—­I mention these minute particulars, because it is the general himself who breaks all his own horses; and he is a very excellent and bold horseman, leaping the highest fences, and going extremely quick, without standing upon his stirrups, bearing on the bridle, or letting his horse run wild,—­circumstances which young men look upon as so essential a part of English horsemanship, that they would rather break a leg or an arm than renounce them.”

Comparatively few farmers in Virginia kept sheep, yet as early as 1758 Washington’s overseer at Mount Vernon reported sixty-five old sheep and forty-eight lambs; seven years later the total number was one hundred fifty-six.  The next year he records that he “put my English Ram Lamb to 65 Ewes,” so that evidently he was trying to improve the breed.  What variety this ram belonged to he does not say.  Near the end of his career he had some of Bakewell’s breed, an English variety that put on fat rapidly and hence were particularly desirable for mutton.

During his long absences from home his sheep suffered grievously, for sheep require a skilled care that few of his managers or overseers knew how to give.  But sheep were an important feature of the English agriculture that he imitated, and he persisted in keeping them.  In 1793 he had over six hundred.

“Before I left home in the spring of 1789,” he wrote to Arthur Young, “I had improved that species of my stock so much as to get 5-1/4 lbs of Wool as the average of the fleeces of my whole flock,—­and at the last shearing they did not yield me 2-1/2 lbs.—­By procuring (if I am able) good rams and giving the necessary attention, I hope to get them up again for they are with me, as you have declared them to be with you, that part of my stock in which I most delight.”

In 1789, by request, he sent Young “a fleece of a midling size and quality.”  Young had this made up into cloth and returned it to the General.

In 1793 we find our Farmer giving such instructions to Whiting as to cull out the unthrifty sheep and transform them into mutton and to choose a few of the best young males to keep as rams.  Whiting, however, did not manage the flock well, for the following February we find Pearce, the new manager, writing: 

“I am sorry to have to inform you that the stock of sheep at Both Union and Dogue Run farms are Some of them Dicing Every Week—­& a great many of Them will be lost, let what will be done—­Since I came I have had shelters made for them & Troughs to feed them In & to give them salt—­& have attended to them myself & was In hopes to have saved those that I found to be weak, but they were too far gone—­and Several of the young Cattle at Dogue Run was past all Recovery when I come & some have died already & several more I am afraid must die before spring, they are so very poor and weak.”