period of his absences. In 1775 he engaged overseers to manage his various
estates in his absence "upon shares," but during the whole war the
plantations barely supported themselves, even with depletion of stock and
fertility, and he was able to draw nothing from them. One overseer, and a
confederate, he wrote, "I believe, divided the profits of my Estate on the
York River, tolerably betwn. them, for the devil of any thing do I get."
Well might he advise knowingly that "I have no doubt myself but that
middling land under a man's own eyes, is more profitable than rich land at
a distance." "No Virginia Estate (except a very few under the best of
management) can stand simple Interest," he declared, and went even further
when he wrote, "the nature of a Virginia Estate being such, that without
close application, it never fails bringing the proprietors in Debt
annually." "To speak within bounds," he said, "ten thousand pounds will
not compensate the losses I might have avoided by being at home, &
attending a little to my own concerns" during the Revolution.

Fortunately for the farmer, the Mount Vernon estate was but a small part
of his property. His father had left him a plantation of two hundred and
eighty acres on the Rappahannock, "one Moiety of my Land lying on Deep
Run," three lots in Frederick "with all the houses and Appurtenances
thereto belonging," and one quarter of the residuary estate. While
surveying for Lord Fairfax in 1748, as part of his compensation Washington
patented a tract of five hundred and fifty acres in Frederick County,
which he always spoke of as "My Bull-skin plantation."

As a military bounty in the French and Indian War the governor of Virginia
issued a proclamation granting Western lands to the soldiers, and under
this Washington not merely secured fifteen thousand acres in his own
right, but by buying the claims of some of his fellow officers doubled
that quantity. A further tract was also obtained under the kindred