The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
MONTICELLO / AGRICULTURAL TECHNIQUE
We have had the most devastating rain which has ever fallen within my
knowledge. Three inches of water fell in the space of about an hour.
Every hollow of every hill presented a torrent which swept everything
before it. I have never seen the fields so much injured. Mr.
Randolph's farm is the only one which has not suffered; his horizontal
furrows arrested the water at every step till it was absorbed, or at
least had deposited the soil it had taken up. Everybody in this
neighborhood is adopting his method of ploughing, except tenants who
have no interest in the preservation of the soil.
to William A. Burwell, 25 February 1810
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