four good fellows, a lad & two girls of abt 16. each in 8 ½ hours dug in my cellar of mountain clay a place 3.f. deep, 8 f. wide & 16 ½ f. long = 142/3 cubical yds. ... in digging my dry well, at the depth of 14 f. I observed one digger, one filler, one drawer … it was a yellow rotten...

One of the propositions in your letter of the 8th inst. is so exactly suited to my situation and feelings on the subject of the negroes for Francis, that I cannot hesitate a moment to accede to it. it is that which proposes to loan me the stock you mean to lay out in this way, to be paid for two...

I know no error more consuming to an estate than that of stocking farms with men almost exclusively. I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. what she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere...

when slack of work, some of the subordinate hands of the spinning house might go to the plough.

I make in my family 2000. yds of cloth a year, which I formerly bought from England, and it only employs a few women, children & invalids who could do little in the farm.

our Spinners are taught to use them so completely as to ensure our being able to clothe our own people by the labor of a few of the least useful of them.

I have near 100. spindles in operation for clothing our own family.

we have in our family ... looms fixed with flying shuttles, which altho’ they do not perform the miracles ascribed to them, do, I think, double the effect of the common loom.

my houshold manufactures are just getting into operation on the scale of a Carding machine ... which may be worked by a girle of 12. years old, a Spinning machine ... carrying 6. spindles for wool, to be worked by a girl also, another ... carrying 12. spindles for cotton, & a loom, with a...

tell Johnny Hemings to finish off immediately the frame for the round table for this place that it may come by the waggon.