Erosion

Erosion is the wearing away of earth or rock. Since the earth was formed erosion has taken place. George Washington was aware of erosion in the farm fields and wanted to stop this washing of gullies in the fields by planting grass. The following excerpt is from a letter George Washington wrote to one of his farm managers (overseers) on January 27, 1793:

"I wish you may not find No. 4 and 5 at the River Plantation very unproductive fields; and very injurious to break, unless it is done with judgment. My intention was to keep them for common pasture; To have endeavoured to stop the gullies; and to have prevented the washed places from getting worse by covering them with Straw; and to have sown the Seeds of the common locust thereon, or something that would (in a few years, have cloathed it with a growth that would have proved a remedy for the present evil. That field is very apt to wash, at present it is very much gullied, and if uncommon attention is not paid to it in the working and in laying it down it will be unfit hereafter for grass even except in a few spots." (Fitzpatrick, John C., The Writings of George Washington, Washington, D.C.: United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission, 1939, Vol. 32, p. 319.)

Erosion changed the way the land features looked in George Washington's time. Think of how much the landscape today has changed since George Washington surveyed. These pictures are examples of different agents of erosion on different types of landscapes.