By thus purchasing whenever an opportunity occurred, the property was increased from the twenty-five hundred acres which had come into Washington’s possession by inheritance to an estate exceeding eight thousand acres, of which over thirty-two hundred were actually under cultivation during the latter part of its owner’s life.

To manage so vast a tract, the property was subdivided into several tracts, called “Mansion House Farm,” “River Farm,” “Union Farm,” “Muddy Hole Farm,” and “Dogue Run Farm,” each having an overseer to manage it, and each being operated as a separate plantation, though a general overseer controlled the whole, and each farm derived common benefit from the property as a whole.  “On Saturday in the afternoon, every week, reports are made by all his overseers, and registered in books kept for the purpose,” and these accounts were so schemed as to show how every negro’s and laborer’s time had been employed during the whole week, what crops had been planted or gathered, what increase or loss of stock had occurred, and every other detail of farm-work.  During Washington’s absences from Mount Vernon his chief overseer sent him these reports, as well as wrote himself, and weekly the manager received in return long letters of instruction, sometimes to the length of sixteen pages, which showed most wonderful familiarity with every acre of the estate and the character of every laborer, and are little short of marvellous when account is taken of the pressure of public affairs that rested upon their writer as he framed them.

When Washington became a farmer, but one system of agriculture, so far as Virginia was concerned, existed, which he described long after as follows: 

“A piece of land is cut down, and kept under constant cultivation, first in tobacco, and then in Indian corn (two very exhausting plants), until it will yield scarcely any thing; a second piece is cleared, and treated in the same manner; then a third and so on, until probably there is but little more to clear.  When this happens, the owner finds himself reduced to the choice of one of three things—­either to recover the land which he has ruined, to accomplish which, he has perhaps neither the skill, the industry, nor the means; or to retire beyond the mountains; or to substitute quantity for quality, in order to raise something.  The latter has been generally adopted, and, with the assistance of horses, he scratches over much ground, and seeds it, to very little purpose.”

Knowing no better, Washington adopted this one-crop system, even to the extent of buying corn and hogs to feed his hands.  Though following in the beaten track, he experimented in different kinds of tobacco, so that, “by comparing then the loss of the one with the extra price of the other, I shall be able to determine which is the best to pursue.”  The largest crop he ever seems to have produced, “being all sweet-scented and neatly managed,” was one hundred and fifteen hogsheads, which averaged in sale twelve pounds each.