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Summary: Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book 1774-1826
Review: Thomas Jefferson's Farm Book (1774-1826) edited by Edwin Morris Betts are found portions of fifty-two years of plantation management at Jefferson's estates in Albermarle, Bedford, and Campbell Counties.There are many entries in Jefferson's "Garden Book" that are more appropriate to his "Farm Book," just as there are entries in the "Farm Book" that belong to his other memoranda books. But Jefferson was often inconsistent with the record of his jottings; probably he just placed them in the books at hand. The "Farm Book," then, is not a farm book in the limited sense, but a plantation book embracing multitudinous activities on his several plantations, the center of interest always being either Monticello or Poplar Forest. I found reading through this book to chronicle how Jefferson, as a plantation manager, worked to plan ahead in order to provide food and clothing for the one hundred-twenty slaves on the five thousand acre estate. Jefferson set himself to apply on his own farms the results of a lifetime of sturdy and experiment in agricultural theories. The letters and notes he left to posterity and the mechanical models he designed and made record his contributions to scientific agriculture. All of which are brough to our attention within the pages of this volume. The narrative is free flowing and easily comprehended and it is a joy to read. As Jefferson once wrote... "I am going to Virginia. I am then to be liberated from the hated occupations of politics, and to remain in the bosom of my family, my farm, and my book." The pages are copies of the original pages of the farm book with commentary and relevant extracts from other writings follow these pages. Nevertheless, you get a feel that running a farm wasn't an easy job.
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