Extract from John Edwards Caldwell’s A Tour through Part of Virginia in the Summer of 1808

His lands adjoining Monticello are said to be about eleven thousand acres. About fifteen hundred acres of cleared land, and a proportion of his negroes are hired out; as his public duties, since he became President, have prevented his engaging in agricultural pursuits ... The garden, though justly celebrated for variety of delicious fruit, has been much neglected, but Mr. Jefferson proposes making considerable improvements, useful and ornamental, both here and in his pleasure grounds.

Published in John Edwards Caldwell, A Tour through Part of Virginia, in the summer of 1808. In a Series of Letters, including an account of Harper’s Ferry, The Natural Bridge, the new discovery called Weir’s Cave, Monticello, and the Different Medicinal Springs, Hot and Cold Baths, Visited by the Author (New York, 1809).