These letters were the result of inquiries made of Washington by Young in 1791.

In order to obtain the facts desired Washington sent out a circular letter to some of the most intelligent farmers in the Middle States, and the replies form perhaps our best source of information regarding agricultural conditions in that period.
Because of this service and of his general interest in agricultural matters Washington was elected a foreign honorary member of the English Board of Agriculture and received a diploma, which is still preserved among his papers.
Some of Washington's other agricultural papers have been printed in one form and another, but a great number, and some the most interesting, can still be consulted only in manuscript.
Washington bequeathed his books and papers, along with his Mansion House, to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, an associate justice of the Federal Supreme Court.

Judge Washington failed to appreciate fully the seriousness of the obligation thus incurred and instead of safeguarding the papers with the utmost jealousy gave many, including volumes of the diary, to visitors and friends who expressed a desire to possess mementoes of the illustrious patriot.

In particular he permitted Reverend William Buel Sprague, who had been a tutor in the family of Nelly Custis Lewis, to take about fifteen hundred papers on condition that he leave copies in their places.

The judge also intrusted a considerable portion to the historian Jared Sparks, who issued the first considerable edition of Washington's writings.