1From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1 May 1794 (Jefferson Papers)
In my new occupation of a farmer I find a good drilling machine indispensably necessary. I remember your recommendation of one invented by one of your neighbors; and your recommendation suffices to satisfy me with it. I must therefore beg of you to desire one to be made for me, and if you will give me some idea of it’s bulk, and whether it could travel here on it’s own legs, I will decide...
2From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 29 December 1794 (Jefferson Papers)
I have long owed you a letter, for which my conscience would not have let me rest in quiet but on the consideration that the paiment would not be worth your acceptance. The debt is not merely for a letter the common traffic of a day, but for valuable ideas, which instructed me, which I have adopted, and am acting on them. I am sensible of the truth of your observations that the atmosphere is...
3From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 13 April 1795 (Jefferson Papers)
This is not the long letter I intend to write in answer to yours of the 5th. Ult. That must await a rainy day, perhaps a rainy season. But as the sowing the succory will not await, I write a line for the present, merely to cover a little seed which I have procured from a neighbor for you. It must be sown immediately, in drills which will admit the plough, and very thin in the drill as the...
4From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 15 April 1795 (Jefferson Papers)
We have tried the drill with Lucerne seed, and found it shed a great deal too much, so that we were obliged to lay it aside. I presume therefore I was mistaken in saying the band and buckets which came were for turnep seed. We rather guess they were for peas or corn. I must correct therefore my petition for the two larger sizes, and in the uncertainty in which I am, I must rather pray for a...
5From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 8 June 1795 (Jefferson Papers)
I inclose you a few seed of the Rutabaga, or Swedish winter turnep. This is the plant which the English government thought of value enough to be procured at public expence from Sweden, cultivated and dispersed. A Mr. Strickland, an English gentleman from Yorkshire, lately here, left a few seeds with me, of which I impart to you. He tells me it has such advantages over the common turnep that it...
6From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 8 October 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
We have heard much here of an improvement made in the Scotch threshing machine by Mr. Martin, and that you have seen and approved it. Being myself well acquainted with the original geered machine, and Booker’s substitution of whirls and bands (as I have one of each kind) it will perhaps give you but a little trouble to give me so much of an explanation as will be necessary to make me...
7From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 23 December 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Novemb.—did not come to my hands till Dec. 13. It had awaited my arrival here: and the ordinary affairs of business and ceremony prevented my applying to the patent office till Dec. 21. I then paid at the treasury the 20. Doll. bill you inclosed adding 10. Dollars, the price of the drill, as you had mentioned. The petition and description are lodged in the patent office. But a...
8From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 6 April 1798 (Jefferson Papers)
I had just recieved from New York the box containing mr Martin’s model of the hand-threshing machine, & the drill, when your favor of Mar. 25. came to hand, and I had nearly compleated a drawing to be filed in the Secretary of state’s office. I suspend further proceeding till I hear from you. in the mean time mr Bingham had communicated to me a model which he had recieved from England. I think...
9From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 4 June 1798 (Jefferson Papers)
I now inclose you mr Martin’s patent. a patent had actually been made out on the first description, and how to get this suppressed and another made for a second invention without a second fee was the difficulty. I practised a little art in a case where honesty was really on our side & nothing against us but the rigorous letter of the law, and having obtained the 1st. specification, and got the...
10From Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 26 November 1798 (Jefferson Papers)
We formerly had a debtor & creditor account of letters on farming; but the high price of tobo. which is likely to continue for some short time, has tempted me to go entirely into that culture and in the mean time my farming schemes are in abeyance, and my farming fields at nurse against the time of my resuming them. but I owe you a political letter. yet the infidelities of the post office and...