A pretty poor showing for an estate and negroes which had certainly cost him over fifty thousand dollars, and on which there was livestock which at the lowest estimation was worth fifteen thousand dollars more. It is not strange that in 1793 Washington attempted to find tenants for all but the Mansion farm. This he reserved for my “own residence, occupation and amusement,” as Washington held that “idleness is disreputable,” and in 1798 he told his chief overseer he did not choose to “discontinue my rides or become a cipher on my own estate.” When at Mount Vernon, as this indicated, Washington rode daily about his estate, and he has left a pleasant description of his life immediately after retiring from the Presidency: “I begin my diurnal course with the sun;… if my hirelings are not in their places at that time I send them messages expressive of my sorrow for their indisposition;… having put these wheels in motion, I examine the state of things further; and the more they are probed, the deeper I find the wounds are which my buildings have sustained by my absence and neglect of eight years; by the time I have accomplished these matters, breakfast (a little after seven o’clock)… is ready;… this being over, I mount my horse and ride round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for dinner.” A visitor at this time is authority for the statement that the master “often works with his men himself—strips off his coat and labors like a common man. The General has a great turn for mechanics. It’s astonishing with what niceness he directs everything in the building way, condescending even to measure the things himself, that all may be perfectly uniform.” This personal attention Washington was able to give only with very serious interruptions. From 1754 till 1759 he was most of the time on the frontier; for nearly nine years his Revolutionary service separated him absolutely from his property; and during the two terms of his Presidency he had only brief and infrequent visits. Just one-half of his forty-six years’ occupancy of Mount Vernon was given to public service.