But Washington failed to include in his receipts many items, such as the use of a fine mansion for himself and family, the use of horses and vehicles, and the added value of slaves and live stock by natural increase.

Besides in some other years the profits were much larger.

And lastly, in judging a man’s success or failure as a farmer, allowance must be made for the kind of land that he has to farm.  The Mount Vernon land was undoubtedly poor in quality, and it is probable that Washington got more out of it than has ever been got out of it by any other person either before or since.  Much of it to-day must not pay taxes.

Washington died possessed of property worth about three-quarters of a million, although he began life glad to earn a doubloon a day surveying.  The main sources of this wealth have already been indicated, but when all allowance is made in these respects, the fact remains that he was compelled to make a living and to keep expenses paid during the forty years in which the fortune was accumulating, and the main source he drew from was his farms.  Not much of that living came from the Custis estate, for, as we have seen, a large part of the money thus acquired was lost.  During his eight years as Commander-in-Chief he had his expenses—­no more.  Of the eight years of his presidency much the same can be said, for all authorities agree that he expended all of his salary in maintaining his position and some say that he spent more.  Yet at the end of his life we find him with much more land than he had in 1760, with valuable stocks and bonds, a house and furniture infinitely superior to the eight-room house he first owned, two houses in the Federal City that had cost him about $15,000, several times as many negroes, and live stock estimated by himself at $15,653 and by his manager at upward of twice that sum.

Such being the case—­and as no one has ever ventured even to hint that he made money corruptly out of his official position—­the conclusion is irresistible that he was a good business man and that he made farming pay, particularly when he was at home.

It is true that only three months before his death he wrote:  “The expense at which I live, and the unproductiveness of my estate, will not allow me to lessen my income while I remain in my present situation.  On the contrary, were it not for occasional supplies of money in payment for lands sold within the last four or five years, to the amount of upwards of fifty thousand dollars, I should not be able to support the former without involving myself in debt and difficulties,” This must be taken, however, to apply to a single period of heavy expense when foreign complications and other causes rendered farming unprofitable, rather than to his whole career.  Furthermore, his landed investments from which he could draw no returns were so heavy that he had approached the condition of being land poor and it was only proper that he should cut loose from some of them.