The Return to Gardening

“By the summer of 1796, Adams, Madison, Washington, and Jefferson had all repaired to their farms and plantations, where agriculture, planting and gardening took precedence over politics.” As Andrea Wulf opens chapter 5 a peaceful aroma is in the air. It was summertime with gardening at the forefronts of a few men’s mind. Immediately Wulf brings about what Jefferson, Washington, Adams, and Madison had in common throughout the summer of 1796. This was the fact that all engaged in a similar feeling of relaxation while tending to their gardens, despite certain differences in the aesthetics of the gardens.

The time spent away from their homes, the anguish and stress that rested upon each of their shoulders, was lifted upon returning home from Philadelphia, to their gardens. In previous chapters, Wulf describes each man’s garden as his sort of temple and place of complete relaxation. She is consistent with this theme throughout chapter 5 when quoting John Adams saying “I will not sit here in summer, I would sooner resign my Office.” This attitude was due to the fact that Adams would have rather been walking his beautiful fields while in congressional meetings. He even instructed his wife on agricultural matters and complained when she did not mention the farm in her letters.

Jefferson and Washington, although on the same page as far as the passion for gardening goes, were on opposite spectrums when each returned to their gardens. Washington, with careful planning, managed to keep his land in amazing condition while Jefferson was not so lucky. His land was neglected and it showed.

This chapter was particularly interesting to me in that we get and avid description of just exactly what each man looked and felt like when back from Philadelphia. Wulf describes Adams “with an axe in his hand felling trees next to his hired laborer, a New England farmer with a modest estate, a Federalist, but one who hated merchants and banks and who, to his wife’s frustration, “never saved any thing but what he vested in Land.” Madison was preparing for the future during this peaceful summer of 1796. One part of him was preparing for the first election campaign in American history; the other was focused on life as a plantation owner. In Virginia, Jefferson was riding across his plantation as his slaves harvested the wheat. He was a man with multiple identities having extensive knowledge of farming methods as well as a side that conjured up “fanciful gardening schemes.” Finally, there was Washington, possibly the most interesting of them all. His military prowess and rigorous discipline carried over from his dedication to Mount Vernon enabling him to create a large business enterprise full anything from plantations to a whiskey distillery.

          

 Clearly, all of these men carried with them a passion for agriculture in a time when farming was possibly the most important aspect of society. To me, returning from Philadelphia for these men constituted a return to their true lives. They led not only political lives, but lives of agricultural bliss.