_Probatum est_." This receipt would seem worth preserving in this day of dear fuel.

As Washington had great abundance of wood and plenty of negroes to cut it, he probably did not try the experiment--at least such a conclusion is what writers on historical method would call "a safe inference." [Illustration: First Page of Washington's Digest of Duhamel's Husbandry] There is in the almanac a rhyme ridiculing physicians and above the March calendar are printed the touching verses: "Thus of all Joy and happiness bereft, And with the Charge of Ten poor Children left: A greater Grief no Woman sure can know, Who,--with Ten Children--who will have me now." Also there are some other verses, very broad and "not quite the proper thing," as Kipling has it.

But it must not be inferred that Washington approved of them.
Washington also kept cash memorandum books, general account books, mill books and a special book in which he recorded his accounts with the estate of the Custis children.

These old books, written in his neat legible hand, are not only one of our chief sources of information concerning his agricultural and financial affairs, but contain many sidelights upon historical events.

It is extremely interesting, for example, to discover in one of the account books that in 1775 at Mount Vernon he lent General Charles Lee--of Monmouth fame--L15, and "to Ditto lent him on the Road from Phila to Cambridge at different times" L9.12 more, a total of L24.12.In later years Lee intrigued against Washington and said many spiteful things about him, but he never returned the loan.
The account stood until 1786, when it was settled by Alexander White, Lee's executor.
In the Cash Memorandum books we can trace Washington's military preparations at the beginning of the Revolution.