From George Washington to Samuel Powel, 2 November 1785
To Samuel Powel
Mount Vernon 2d Novr 1785.
Dear Sir,
I have had the honor to receive your favor of the 10th ulto together with the wheat from the Cape of Good Hope; which you were so obliging as to send me by the revd Mr Griffith; for both I thank you. The latter shall have a fair trial in the same inclosure with some presented to me by Colo. Spaight, (a Delegate in Congress from No. Carolina) which had been planted, & had obtained a vigorous growth before yours came to hand. This also was from the Cape, & brought probably by the same Vessel.1 I sowed it in Drills two feet apart, & five inches asunder in the rows, to make the most I could of it by cultivation in the Spring: this method will in my opinion be more productive than Mr Bordeley’s. It ought to be so indeed, as the expence of ground is much greater, & the workings will probably be oftener.2
I pray you to present my best wishes & most respectful compliments to Mrs Powel—to which please to add, & to accept yourself those of Mrs Washington. I have the honor to be &c.
G: Washington
LB, DLC:GW.
1. GW on 27 Aug. sowed the wheat that Richard Dobbs Spaight (1758–1802) had given him on 1 July. It was probably on his visit of 15 Oct. that David Griffith (1742–1789), the rector of Fairfax Parish, brought GW the wheat that Powel had sent. See , 4:158, 187, 206. GW recorded in his diary on this date, 2 Nov.: “Perceived the Wheat from the Cape, which had been sent to me by Mr. Powell of Philada., & which I sowed on the 19th. of last Month had come up very well” (ibid., 217).
2. See Powel to GW, 5 July (second letter), n.2, for reference to John Beale Bordley’s recent publication on the raising of crops. Perhaps the copyist changed to “expence of ground” GW’s “expanse of ground.”