nt
for his estate for several succeeding years, in which were tables
designating the rotation of crops. The document occupied thirty folio
pages, all written in his clear and peculiar style. It was completed
only four days before his death, and was accompanied by a letter to
James Anderson, the manager of his farms, dated on the same day
(December 10th), in which he gave him some special directions, as if the
master was about to depart on a journey. This appears the more singular,
as Washington expected to reside at home, and exercise a personal
supervision of the whole. In his letter to Anderson, Washington
remarked:--

"Economy in all things is as commendable in the manager as it is
beneficial and desirable to the employer; and, on a farm, it shows
itself in nothing more evidently or more essentially than in not
suffering any provender to be wasted, but, on the contrary, in
taking care that every atom of it be used to the best advantage;
and likewise in not permitting the ploughs, harness, and other
implements of husbandry, and the gears belonging to them, to be
unnecessarily exposed, trodden under foot, run over by carts, and
abused in other respects. More good is derived from attending to
the minutiae of a farm than strikes people at first view; and
examining the farmyard fences, and looking into the fields to see
that nothing is there but what is allowed to be there, is
oftentimes the means of producing more good, or at least of
avoiding more evil, than can be accomplished by riding from one
working-party or overseer to another. I have mentioned these
things, not only because they have occurred to me, but because,
although apparently trifles, they prove far otherwise in the
result."

During the year, Washington had conducted the preparations of the
provisional army for the field almost wholly through the medium of
letters. These were numerous and sometimes voluminous, and exhibit his
constant watchfulness and care. One of his later letters to the
secretary of war was in reference to a plan of Hamilton's for _hutting_
the troops then in the field; and the last letter which, it is believed,
he ever wrote--having been penned on the day when he was attacked by
fatal disease--was to General Hamilton, on a topic of public interest.
Hamilton had communicated to the secretary of war his views concerning
the establishment of a milit