Even when they practised law they also supervised their estates; and if they were not lawyers, in addition to tilling the land they were always ready to try their hand at some kind of manufacture.

They were willing to turn their attention to any new business in which there was a chance to make money, whether it was to put up a mill, to build a forge, to undertake a contract for the delivery of wheat to some big flour merchant, or to build a flotilla of flatboats, and take the produce of a given neighborhood down to New Orleans for shipment to the West Indies.
[Footnote: Clay MSS., Seitz & Lowan to Garret Darling, Lexington, January 23, 1797; agreement of George Nicholas, October 10, 1796, etc.
This was an agreement on the part of Nicholas to furnish Seitz & Lowan with all the flour manufactured at his mill during the season of 1797 for exportation, the flour to be delivered by him in Kentucky.

He was to receive $5.50 a barrel up to the receipt of $1500; after that it was to depend upon the price of wheat.

Six bushels of wheat were reckoned to a barrel of flour, and the price of a bushel was put at four shillings; in reality it ranged from three to six.] They were also always engaged in efforts to improve the breed of their horses and cattle, and to introduce new kinds of agriculture, notably the culture of the vine.
[Footnote: _Do._, "Minutes of meeting of the Directors of the Vineyard Society," June 27, 1800.] They speedily settled themselves definitely in the new country, and began to make ready for their children to inherit their homes after them; though they retained enough of the restless spirit which had made them cross the Alleghanies to be always on the lookout for any fresh region of exceptional advantages, such as many of them considered the lands along the lower Mississippi.

They led a life which appealed to them strongly, for it was passed much in the open air, in a beautiful region and lovely climate, with horses and hounds, and the management of their estates and their interest in politics to occupy their time; while their neighbors were men of cultivation, at least by their own standards, so that they had the society for which they most cared.