November fifteenth Washington "Rode to visit Mr.now Lord Fairfax," who was back from England with his family, and the renewal of old friendships proved so agreeable that in the next month the families dined back and forth repeatedly.
Nor did the Farmer cease to labor or to lay plans for the future.

He entered into negotiations for the purchase of more land to round out Mount Vernon and surveyed some tracts that he owned.

On the tenth of December he inclosed with a letter to Anderson a long set of "Instructions for my manager" which were to be "most strictly and pointedly attended to and executed." He had rented one of the farms to Lawrence Lewis, also the mill and distillery, and was desirous of renting the fishery in order to have less work and fewer hands to attend to; in fact, "an entire new scene" was to be enacted.

The instructions were exceedingly voluminous, consisting of thirty closely written folio pages, and they contain plans for the rotation of crops for several years, as well as specific directions regarding fencing, pasturage, composts, feeding stock, and a great variety of other subjects.

In them one can find our Farmer's final opinions on certain phases of agriculture.