when absent on public business, exercised a general supervision of his affairs, requiring a carefully prepared report of all oper ations to be transmitted to him weekly, for his inspection and suggestions.

He was very abstemious, and while his table always furnished his guests with ample and varied supplies for their appetites, he never indulged in the least excess, either in eating or drinking. He was an early riser, and might be found in his library from one to two hours before daylight in winter, and at dawn in summer. His toilet, plain and simple, was soon made. A single servant prepared his clothes, and laid them in a proper place at night for use in the morning. He also combed and tied his master's hair.

Washington always dressed and shaved himself. The implements he then used have been preserved, as interesting relics, in the family of Doctor Stuart, who, as we have observed, married the widow of John Parke Custis, the son of Mrs. Washington. Though neat in his dress and appearance, he never wasted precious moments upon his toilet, for he always regarded time, not as a gift but as a loan, for which he must account to the great Master.

Washington kept his own accounts most carefully and methodically, in handwriting remarkable for its extreme neatness and uniformity of stroke. This was produced by the constant use of a gold pen. One of these, with a silver case, used by Washington during a part of the old war for independence, he presented to his warm personal friend, General Anthony Walton White, of New Jersey, one of the most distinguished and patriotic of the cavalry officers of that war in the southern campaigns. It is now in the possession of Mrs. Eliza M.

Evans, near Brunswick, New Jersey, the only surviving child of General White. In one end of the silver pen-case is a sliding tube for a common black-lead pencil, the convenient ever-pointed" pencil being unknown in Washington's time. That was invented by Isaac Hawkins, and patented by him, in London, in 1802.

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WASHINGTON'S GOLD PEN WITH SILVER CASE.

From his youth Washington kept a diary. For many years these records of his daily experience were made on the blank leaves of the Virginia Almanac, "Printed and sold by Purdie

Where o how - mytime is spent Remarks & Occ? in April.. Acct of the weather in April

FAC-SIMILE OF PAGE-HEADINGS IN WASHINGTON'S DIARY.

and Dixon, Williamsburg." They are headed respectively, as seen in the engraving, which is a fac-simile from one of his early diaries after his marriage. Under similar headings in these almanacs, and in small blank pocket-books, this man of mighty labors kept such records, from day to day, for more than forty years; and he frequently noted therein minute particulars concerning his agricultural operations, in the style of the sentence on the next page, which was copied from his diary for March, 1771.

Thus minutely journalizing his agricultural proceedings,

keeping his own accounts, making all his own surveys, and, even before the Revolution, having an extensive correspond

20 "Beganto Manufacture my Wheat with the water of Piney manch, which being insuffice ert to keep the Mill constantly al work, & Country Custom com ing in no bemade gree progress wond

FAC-SIMILE OF ENTRY IN WASHINGTON'S DIARY.

ence, Washington found much daily employment for his pen. The labors in his library, and a visit to his stables, usually occupied the hours before breakfast. After making a frugal meal of Indian cakes, honey, and tea or coffee, he would mount his horse and visit every part of his estate where the current operations seemed to require his presence, leaving his guests to enjoy themselves with books and papers, or otherwise, according to their choice. He rode upon his farms entirely unattended, opening the gates, pulling down and putting up the fences, and inspecting, with a careful eye, every agricultural operation, and personally directing the manner in which many should be performed. Sometimes the tour of his farms, in the course of the morning might average, in distance, twelve or fifteen miles; and on these occasions his appearance was exceedingly plain. The late Mr. Custis, his adopted son, has left on record a description of him on one of these occasions, in

the latter years of his life, which he gave to a gentleman who was out in search of Washington:

"You will meet, sir," said young Custis to the inquirer, "with an old gentleman riding alone, in plain drab clothes, a broad-brimmed white hat, a hickory switch in his hand, and carrying an umbrella with a long staff which is attached to his saddle-bow-that, person, sir, is General Washington."* The umbrella was used to shelter him from the sun, for his' skin was tender and easily affected by its rays.

His breakfast hour was seven o'clock in summer and eight in winter, and he dined at three. He always ate heartily, but was no epicure. His usual beverage was small beer or cider, and Madeira wine. Of the latter he often drank several small glasses at a sitting. He took tea and toast, or a little wellbaked bread, early in the evening, conversed with or read to his family, when there were no guests, and usually, whether there was company or not, retired for the night at about nine o'clock.

So carefully did Washington manage his farms, that they became very productive. His chief crops were wheat and tobacco, and these were very large-so large that vessels that came up the Potomac, took the tobacco and flour directly from his own wharf, a little below his deer-park in front of his mansion, and carried them to England or the West Indies. So noted were these products for their quality, and so faithfully were they put up, that any barrel of flour bearing the brand of "GEORGE WASHINGTON, MOUNT VERNON," was exempted from the customary inspection in the British West India ports.

* "Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, by his Adopted Son," page 168.

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Upon the spot where that old wharf once stood, at the foot of a shaded ravine scooped from the high bank of the

Potomac, through which flows a clear stream from a spring, is a rickety modern structure, placed there for the accommodation of visitors to Mount Vernon, who are conveyed thither by a steamboat twice a week. There may be seen the same ravine, the same broad river, the same pleasant shores of Maryland beyond; but, instead of the barrels of flour, the quintals of fish, and the hogsheads of tobacco which appeared there in Washington's time, well-dressed men and women—true pil