And Lastly, John Adams

John Adams was a much smaller-scale farmer than his contemporaries Washington and Jefferson.  His modest 500-acre farm was tiny compared to their large plantations.  However, he enjoyed the farming life every bit as much, and saw the value in working his own land over arguing politics in Philadelphia.  Abigail Adams said that he would not have been able to handle his political life if it were not for the distraction of farm work.  Adams wrote in a letter to Jefferson in the summer of 1796, "I have spent my summer so deliciously in farming that I return to the old story of politicks with great reluctance."  His farm was a retreat from the Constitutional Convention.  When frustrated with hours of political debate his stated, "My time might have been improved to some purpose in moving grass, raking hay, or hoeing corn, weeding carrots, picking or shelling peas."  Even after Adams was elected president he stated, "I should prefer the delights of a garden to the Dominion of a World."

Throughout his political life Adams used the skills he had learned on the farm to inform his public decisions.  In his book A Defence of the Constitution of the Government of the United States of America, he discusses how the insights he had gained as a farmer influenced his political theory.  For example, when driving a wagon down a steep hill he would put one team of oxen in front and another in back to counterbalance the load.  This division of powers inspired his thinking on the separation of powers in the branches of the U.S. government.  Also, in his home state of Massachusetts Adams tried to include rewards for agriculture in the state constitution.