With a genuine yearning for agricultural reform, he experimented with different seeds, grafted fruit trees, tested grapes for a homegrown Virginia wine, and collected cuttings from friends. Not to be outdone by Jefferson, he also devised a new agricultural plow that could seed and harrow fields at the same time. This was the golden age of amateur gentlemen scientists, and when Washington wanted to learn whether spermaceti candles or tallow candles were cheaper, he set up an experiment, recorded how long it took each type to burn, then computed that spermaceti candles were more than twice as
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