w breeds. These Guinea swine were red in color,
and it is said that the breed was brought to America from west Africa by
slave traders. It was to these animals that Washington fed the
by-products of his distillery.

In the slaughtering of animals he tried experiments as he did in so many
other matters. In 1768 he killed a wether sheep which weighed one
hundred three pounds gross. He found that it made sixty pounds of meat
worth three pence per pound, five and a half of tallow at seven and a
half pence, three of wool at fifteen pence, and the skin was worth one
shilling and three pence, a total of L1.3.5. One object of such
experiments was to ascertain whether it was more profitable to butcher
animals or sell them on the hoof.

Washington also raised chickens, turkeys, swans, ducks, geese and
various other birds and beasts. In 1788 Gouverneur Morris sent him two
Chinese pigs and with them "a pair of Chinese geese, which are really
the foolishest geese I ever beheld; for they choose all times for
setting but in the spring, and one of them is even now [November]
actually engaged in that business." Of some golden pheasants that had
been brought from China the General said that before seeing the birds he
had considered that pictures of them must be "only works of fancy, but
now I find them to be only Portraits."

The fact is that his friends and admirers sent him so many feathered or
furred creatures that toward the end of his life he was the proprietor
of a considerable zoo.

Notwithstanding mismanagement by his employees and slaves, Washington
accumulated much valuable domestic stock. In his will, made the year of
his death, he lists the following: "1 Covering horse, 5 Cob. horses--4
Riding do--Six brood mares--20 working horses and mares,--2 Covering
jacks & 3 young ones 10 she asses--42 working mules--15 younger ones.
329 head of horned cattle. 640 head of Sheep, and the large stock of
hogs, the precise number unknown." He further states that his manager
believes the stock worth seven thousand pounds, but he conservatively
sets it down at fifteen thousand six hundred fifty-three dollars.

CHAPTER X

THE HORTICULTURIST AND LANDSCAPE GARDENER

Washington's work as a horticulturist prior to the educating influences
of the Revolution was mostly utilitarian. That he had a peach orchard as
early as 1760 is proven by an entry in his diary for February 22: "Laid
in part, the Worm of a fence round the Peach orchar