Washington the Farmer

George Washington was also a firm believer in the virtuousness of farming.  He maintained, with Jefferson, that American agriculture was the key to avoiding the decadence and moral corruption of Europe.  The man who had been compared to the Roman Cincinnatus, in his peaceful abdication of power and return to his farm, hoped that the U.S. would become an agrarian republic and "a storehouse and granary for the world." 

Washington loved his own farm and created many innovations to further keep the U.S. from becoming dependent on other countries.  For example, he planted his home, Mt. Vernon, in all native species, which was highly unusual at that time among the colonists.  He had also noticed that colonial soil was losing its fertillity because the fields lacked manure.  American farmers let their livestock wander in the forests instead of on fallow fields.  Washington invented a manure container to store and rotate manure for spreading on the fields in the spring.

Even when president, Washington would state: "I can truly say I had rather be at Mt. Vernon than to be attended at the seat of government by the officers of state and representatives of every power in Europe."  After his retirement from the presidency, Washington separated his farm into large plots and leased each plot out in order to reduce the number of slaves on his plantation, and he grouped his slaves together with their families so nobody was split up.  He was also the only founding father who freed all his slaves upon his death.  Washington saw the future of the United States in free, landowning farmers.  As Andrea Wulf states in her book Founding Gardeners:

"The Commander-in-Chief [Washington] saw the future of America as a country peopled not by soldiers but by farmers--an agrarian society that could be industrious and happy, where 'our swords and spears have given place to the plough share and the pruning hook.'  The general who had defeated the British army idealized not the military tactician or the political revolutionary, but the farmer. 'The life of a husbandman above all others is the most delectable.'"