Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 26, 1993 TAG: 9308260023
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The 11 pieces of correspondence, from 1786 to 1819, were tucked away and forgotten among the papers of a long-retired Agriculture Department historian.
The only reason they came to light: An Agriculture Department researcher came across them while combing files for other material.
Unexpected finds are "a chronic problem; we don't always know what we have," said Joseph Howard, director of the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, Md.
The situation isn't unique. The Library of Congress has 28 million items that haven't been cataloged - including hundreds of thousands of sound recordings and photographs and 17 million manuscripts.
In the Jefferson correspondence, an English lord praised the nation's third president for his iron moldboard used on farm plows. Jefferson worked out mathematically the shape and angle of the device and introduced the practice of having it cast entirely out of iron. A moldboard is a curved plate attached to a plowshare, for turning over soil.
In another letter, Jefferson thanked an admirer for sending melon seed from Persia. In a third, Jefferson detailed for a farmer the procedure for planting chicory seed.
Regarding the moldboard plow, the British Board of Agriculture "is very generally satisfied that the invention is important," Lord Sheffield of the British board wrote Jefferson on March 24, 1806.
As for the chicory, "sow the seed in rich beds, as you would tobacco seed, and take the advantage of good seasons in the spring to draw & transplant them," wrote Jefferson. "I have generally set the plants 16.I. or 2.F. apart every way, to give room for several weedings the first summer, for during that they are too weak to contend with the weeds."
The letters show the application of science to agriculture and present "a wonderful picture of the practical side to one of the country's greatest men," said Alan Fusonie, head of the library's special collections section.
They also show that Washington hasn't changed much in 200 years. Among the correspondence: letters from two job seekers to the newly inaugurated president.
"Should you think me worthy of an appointment, a letter left at the post office will meet me," a surveyor wrote on March 7, 1801.
A garden designer wanted to lay out public gardens in Washington.
"As you have seen some of the Beautifull Gardens of Europe I should Be Happy to Do Buisness," the garden designer wrote Jefferson - who had lived in France from 1784 to 1789, first negotiating commercial treaties for the new nation and then as the minister succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
There's no indication of a response from Jefferson among the 11 pieces of rediscovered correspondence.
by CNB