Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Parkinson, Richard

PARKINSON, Richard, English agriculturist, b. in Lincolnshire, England, in 1748; d. in Osgarby, England, 23 Feb., 1815. He became a farmer, was interested in improved methods, and was encouraged by Sir John Sinclair, president of the Board of agriculture, who recommended him to George Washington. He left England 3 Sept., 1798, and was for some time in the employ of Washington as an agriculturist at Mount Vernon, and resided at Orange Hill, near Baltimore. “Parkinson,” says Prof. John Donaldson, “has always been reckoned one of the best practical writers on agriculture to the time in which he lived, and, our opinion thinks, very justly.” He published “The Experienced Farmer” (2 vols., London, 1798; enlarged ed., with an autobiography, 1807); “A Tour in America, 1798-1800,” containing reminiscences of Gen. Washington (2 vols., 1805); “The English Practice of Farming” (1806); “Gypsum as a Manure” (1808); “Breeding and Management of Live-Stock,” a standard work (2 vols., 1809); “Survey of Rutlandshire” (1809); and “Survey of Huntingdonshire” (1811).