Ultimately this government brought order and financial stability, but all this took time and Washington was so financially embarrassed in 1789 when he traveled to New York to be inaugurated President that he had to borrow money to pay the expenses of the journey.
After having set the wheels of government in motion he made an extended trip through New England and whenever public festivities would permit he examined into New England farm methods and took copious notes.

On the first day up from New York he saw good crops of corn mixed with pumpkins and met four droves of beef cattle, "some of which were very fine--also a Flock of Sheep....

We scarcely passed a farm house that did not abd.
in Geese." His judgment of New England stock was that the cattle were "of a good quality and their hogs large, but rather long legged." The shingle roofs, stone and brick chimneys, stone fences and cider making all attracted his attention.

The fact that wheat in that section produced an average of fifteen bushels per acre and often twenty or twenty-five was duly noted.

On the whole he seems to have considered the tour enjoyable and profitable in spite of the fact that on his return through Connecticut the law against Sabbath traveling compelled him to remain over Sunday at Perkins' Tavern and to attend church twice, where he "heard very lame discourses from a Mr.Pond." About 1785 Washington had begun a correspondence with Arthur Young and also began to read his periodical called the _Annals of Agriculture_.
The _Annals_ convinced him more than ever of the superiority of the English system of husbandry and not only gave him the idea for some of the experiments that have been mentioned, but also made him very desirous of adopting a regular and systematic course of cropping in order to conserve his soil.