I am not certain, with American keeping and treatment, if they be not the best: for I never saw an animal live without food, except this; and I am pretty sure they nearly do that.

When they are fed, the flesh may well be sweet: it is all young, though the pig be ten years old." "The aim of the farmers in this country (if they can be called farmers)," wrote Washington to Arthur Young in 1791, "is, not to make the most they can from the land, which is or has been cheap, but the most of the labour, which is dear; the consequence of which has been, much ground has been _scratched_ over and none cultivated or improved as it ought to have been: whereas a farmer in England, where land is dear, and labour cheap, finds it his interest to improve and cultivate highly, that he may reap large crops from a small quantity of ground." No clearer statement of the differences between American and European agriculture has ever been formulated.

Down to our own day the object of the American farmer has continued to be the same--to secure the largest return from the expenditure of a given amount of labor.

But we are on the threshold of a revolution, the outcome of which means intensive cultivation and the realization of the largest possible return from a given amount of land.
That Washington saw the distinction so clearly is of itself sufficient proof that he pondered long and deeply upon agricultural problems..