[24]

Ibid., p. 10.

[25]

Frederick Gutheim. The Potomac (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1968), p. 98.

[26]

R. B. Davis, Intellectual Life in Jefferson’s Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1964), p. 167, notes that in 1773 the Society for the Advancement of Useful Knowledge was formed in Williamsburg, followed by the Philadelphia Agricultural Society in 1780, and the Richmond Society for Promoting Agriculture in 1810, all dedicated to working for the improvement of farming.

[27]

A list of these writings on agriculture was compiled by E. G. Swern in 1913 and published by the Virginia State Library.

[28]

Davis, Intellectual Life, pp. 159-160, 167. Among the inventions of the McCormick family were threshing machines, hydraulic machines, a hemp-brake, blacksmith’s bellows, and self-stoppers for grist mills. Other patents issued to Virginians dealt with plows, grain screens, rice hullers, hemp and flax breakers, corn shellers, beehives, clover seed cleaners and gatherers, tobacco presses, and corn grinders.