12. Rid to the Mill by the Plantation at the Ferry.
GW today wrote Robert Cary & Co., requesting that a few goods be added to his last order. The most important article, “and the principal end of my writing,” he told the company, was “a pair of French Burr Millstones” for merchant milling. The stones that he was presently using were giving him flour of fine quality, but he wanted to produce superfine flour, which could best be done with buhrstone, noted for its hardness and the many minute cutting edges on its surfaces. In choosing the new millstones, GW instructed, care was to be taken to see that they were “of a good and even quality. I should not Incline to give any extravagent Sum for them on the one hand nor miss of getting a pair of good ones by limiting the price on the other” (DLC:GW;
, 293–94).