George Washington, man of compost (and United States President).
How many people knew that George Washington was not only the first United States president, but even more importantly (IMHO) a compost pioneer?
Washington was, reliable accounts suggest, a practical man noted for his good sense and management ability, rather than for fine oratory or sentiment or priggishness of the “Father, I cannot tell a lie” variety. He was well grounded. It therefore comes as little surprise that he was also a gardener, and a keen farmer. Unfortunately the history books have largely missed Washington’s true contributions to horticulture, which were far more important, and far more constructive, than hacking down cherry trees.
Washington was, largely thanks to inheritance, one of the wealthiest men in Virginia before he became a public figure. He farmed his estates at Mount Vernon with methodicalness verging on regimentation. He had divided his estates into five separate farms, and was intimately familiar with the properties of the soil on each. Washington built one of the first stercoraries, a building devoted to the storing of dung, in America. Manure fermented there until it was ready to spread on the fields. Washington also began the process of using fencing to pasture animals on grass fields to provide manure in the fields and to fatten his livestock.
He experimented with river creek mud and fish heads to improve the soil, and experimentation with the practice of what would later be called green manuring - growing buckwheat, clover, and peas to be ploughed under to replenish the soil. Today, we know that these crops help add nitrogen to the soil. Washington understood, through experimentation and reading the work of other agriculturalists, that the practice helped improve fertility, without knowing the reason.
Land and crops and gardening are the most commonly appearing topic in Washington’s diaries - more common even than politics and affairs of state. But farming was not his only occupation. By the early 1770s, he had become a soldier of national reputation, and Virginia’s representative in the Continental Congresses. By the time the War of Independence broke out in 1775, Washington was the natural commander-in-chief of the American forces
But years before he entered American public life, Washington’s diary reveals that he had already made his claim to a place in the history of compost. On 3 April, 1760, he wrote in his diary: “Got several Composts and laid them to dry in order to mix with the Earth brot [brought] from the Field below to try their several Virtues.”
The “composts” Washington was experimenting with were not quite the same as what we mean by the word today. He did not include any plant material, except in the form of animal manure. Rather, he was experimenting with a mixture of soils, manure and earth.
“Mixd my Composts in a box with ten Apartments in the following manner viz.–in No. 1 is three pecks of the Earth brought from below the Hill out of the 46 Acre Field without any mixture–in No. 2. is two pecks of the said Earth and one of Marle [soil consisting of clay and lime - a valuable fertilizer] taken out of the said Field which Marle seemd a little Inclinable to Sand. 3. Has 2 Pecks of sd. Earth and 1 of Riverside Sand. 4. Has a Peck of Horse Dung. 5. Has Mud taken out of the Creek. 6. Has Cow Dung. 7. Marle from the Gullys on the Hill side wch. seemd to be purer than the other. 8. Sheep Dung. 9. Black Mould taken out of the Pocoson on the Creek side. 10. Clay got just below the Garden. All mixd with the same quantity & sort of Earth in the most effectual manner by reducing the whole to a tolerable degree of fineness & juggling them well together in a Cloth. In each of these divisions were planted three Grains of Wheat 3 of Oats & as many of Barley, all at equal distances in Rows & of equal depth.” (George Washington’s diaries 14 April 1760)
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