The Agronomist

Long before Monticello as we know it was built and rebuilt by “Thomas Jefferson, Architect,” his love of the land on his little mountain was deep and lifelong.

TJ was more than just a Virginia planter. Most of our early colonial plantation owners immersed themselves in agricultural knowledge. It was their means of livelihood, whether or not they personally dug, weeded, sowed or reaped. 

Jefferson, however, was a cut above. He not only cultivated his property for monetary profit (which never quite happened), but his football field of a kitchen garden, specifically for his personal use and for feeding his large labor force, was his own laboratory. His garden book meticulously details the weather, the season, the first bud of whatever flower, fruit or vegetable, the size and weights of the aforementioned, sometimes with hand-drawn illustrations. He was keen to graft seedlings to create (or try to create) new hybrids wherever possible. He was an agricultural scientist in the same sense that his friend Benjamin Franklin was a physicist. It was his hobby. It was his joy.

The Making of a Cosmopolitan

While Thomas Jefferson always straddled the line between a country farmer and a city fellow, slipping effortlessly into Virginia’s then-capital of Williamsburg, and later Philadelphia, his real transformation into a man of the world began when he was induced to go to Paris in 1784, as a “successor” to ambassador (to use the modern term) Benjamin Franklin.

He lived in a fine Parisian house. (Monticello had been named, but was piecemeal and under creation.) He purchased new clothing in the French fashion. He bought and wore a powdered wig. He polished his French language skills and learned other languages sufficient to get by. He sampled French cuisine and wines and quickly sent for a servant to learn the art of cookery. 

Always a master of the courteous bow and behavior, he enjoyed the company of an elegant class of people he seldom encountered in rugged America. He sat for portraits. And he met the crème de la crème of European intellectuals, philosophers, writers, artists and scientists. 

And he traveled. He spent three months traveling (as private citizen) through southern France and into northern Italy. He went alone, hiring post horses for his personal carriage en route as needed. He wanted to meet the people as they lived, writing, “You must ferret the people out of their hovels…look into their kettles, eat their bread… You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course of this investigation.” 

His visit through “wine country” – Beaujolais, Burgundy, Champagne and Bordeaux – was an oenophile’s delight, introducing him to some of the best wines, grapes and agricultural techniques in the world. He had cases of fine wines shipped back to Monticello. 

He planned to introduce vineyards in central Virginia, believing its soil was conducive to the craft. It was not successful during his lifetime, but TJ would be thrilled with the popularity of dozens of Charlottesville-area wineries that exist today.  

If the love of agriculture was high on TJ’s list of avocations, the same might be said of his passion for architecture. He was a fine draftsman with an instinct for design and building. 

Andrea Palladio was a Renaissance architect of the mid-sixteenth century, already dead for 200 years by the time Jefferson showed up in Italy. But his Greco-Roman-influenced buildings were still very much in evidence. Not only did Palladio design public buildings, but he specialized in the villas and private homes of prominent citizens.

Jefferson became a devotee of the old master, particularly his symmetry of design, and his domes and arches. These elements caused the Virginian to “rethink” his plans for Monticello, and rework them to the masterpiece that now exists, and is the only Presidential home on the list of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.

Then There Was Rice

Rice was known in America, of course, particularly to natives living in and around marshy lands – but it drew mosquitos and disease. Rice was also one of the main crops in northern Italy (and still is) with none of the American “problems.” So while there, Jefferson investigated several new techniques for growing the long-grain, or “rough” Basmati variety. He believed it would prove conducive in in the low-lying areas of South Carolina where rice was already being grown.

The problem was that the Italian city-states of northern Italy (Milan, Genoa, Turin, etc.) zealously guarded their crops from competition abroad. They had very strict laws – as in “punishable by death” – for taking it out of the country.

Smuggling

In defiance of punishment-by-death customs laws to take “rough rice” out of the country, TJ arranged for a muleteer to smuggle a couple of sacks to his attention back in France. He also sent a small packet of the grain to his good friend James Madison, and members of the South Carolina delegation.

Later, he stuffed his pockets with some of the rice grains, and “walked it” out of the country. Perhaps he believed that customs officials would not insult an American gentleman by physically searching him for a minuscule amount of contraband. 

It appears that this smuggling foray of Mr. Jefferson was a one-off. There is no record or indication of him ever doing it again.

But an unapologetic Jefferson would later write that “the greatest service that can be rendered any country is to add  an [sic] useful plant to its culture.” 

TJ the agronomist was correct. The type of rice that he “imported” from Italy was easily and successfully grown in the Carolinas. And much of “Carolina Rice” as we know it today, can trace its roots to Mr. Jefferson, Smuggler.

Sources: 

Howard, Hugh – Mr. Jefferson, Architect – Rizzoli Intl. Publications – 2003

Malone, Dumas – Jefferson and the Rights of Man (Vol. 2) – Little, Brown – 1951

McLaughlin, Jack – Jefferson and Monticello – Henry Holt – 1988

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/journey-through-france-and-italy-1787

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-11-02-0568