. The home of Washington; or, Mount Vernon and its associations, historical, biographical, and pictorial . d Madeira wine. Of the latter he often drank several smallglasses at a sitting. He took tea and toast, or a little well-baked bread, early in the evening, conversed with or read tohis family, when there were no guests, and usually, whetherthere was company or not, retired for the night at about nineoclock. So carefully did Washington manage his farms, that theybecame very productive. His chief crops were wheat andtobacco, and these were very large—so large that vessels thatcame up the Pot
. The home of Washington; or, Mount Vernon and its associations, historical, biographical, and pictorial . d Madeira wine. Of the latter he often drank several smallglasses at a sitting. He took tea and toast, or a little well-baked bread, early in the evening, conversed with or read tohis family, when there were no guests, and usually, whetherthere was company or not, retired for the night at about nineoclock. So carefully did Washington manage his farms, that theybecame very productive. His chief crops were wheat andtobacco, and these were very large—so large that vessels thatcame up the Potomac, took the tobacco and flour directly fromhis own wharf, a little below his deer-park in front of his man-sion, and carried them to England or the West Indies. Sonoted were these products for their quality, and so faithfullywere they put up, that any barrel of flour bearing the brand of George Washington, Mount Yernon, was exempted fromthe customary inspection in the British West India ports. * Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, by his Adopted Son,page 168. AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 83. Upon the spot where that old wharfonce stood, at the foot of a shaded ra-vine scooped from the high bank of thePotomac, through which flows a clear stream from a spring, is arickety modern structure, placed there for the accommodationof visitors to Mount Yernon, who are conveyed thither by asteamboat twice a week. There may be seen the same ravine,the same broad river, the same pleasant shores of Marylandbeyond; but, instead of the barrels of flour, the quintals offish, and the hogsheads of tobacco which appeared there inWashingtons time, well-dressed men and women—true pil- 84 MOUNT VERNON grims to a hallowed slirine, or mere idle gazers upon the Lurialplace of a great man—throng that wharf as they arrive anddepart on their errands of patriotism or of curiosity.^ And now the dawn of great events, in which Washingtonwas to be a conspicuous actor, glowed in the eastern
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