Thomas Jefferson's Gardening Compared to Today Thomas Jefferson, one of our founding fathers, was very interested in gardening and learning about soil and soil conditions. It has been written that he grew over 300 varieties of vegetables and herbs and even more than a hundred different types of fruit. “The third American president Thomas Jefferson was a man of many talents. He wrote the Declaration of Independence. He was an accomplished architect, scientist, landscape designer, farmer and gardener throughout his life. As a young man, Jefferson inherited his family's 5,000-acre plantation on Monticello Mountain near Charlottesville, Virginia, where he designed the neoclassical house and flower gardens and planted corn fields, orchards, and vineyards. (Skirble)”“Jefferson's Monticello garden was a revolutionary American garden. One wonders if anyone else had ever put together such a collection of plant novelties, selected from practically every Western culture known at the time, then disseminated by Jefferson with the tenacity of a religious reformer, of a squalid evangelist. Here grew the earth's melting pot of immigrant vegetables: an Ellis Island of introductions, the whole world of hardy economic plants: 330 varieties of eighty-nine species of vegetables and herbs, 170 varieties of the best fruit varieties known at the time. Jefferson's legacy of supporting small farmers, plant-based cuisine, and sustainable agriculture is very relevant today. (Hatch)”“Aside from its diverse population of mostly introduced crops, the Monticello garden was American in size and scope, experimental character, and broad visual scope. 600,000 cubic feet of Piedmont red clay were moved by wagon and mule to create the "Hanging Garden," and... middle of paper... traveled an average of 1,518 miles (about 2,400 kilometers). In contrast, locally sourced food traveled an average of just 45 miles to Iowa markets. (DeWeerdt)” This is not only bad for the environment, as all the food transported around the world causes pollution, but it also doesn't support local farmers. When people buy locally grown products, they help the community through taxes earned from the products they purchase. So, without the impact of our founding fathers, they learn how to grow crops and experiment with seeds to see how well they grow in certain areas. We probably wouldn't be here today. I'm sure that with Thomas Jefferson's notes that he took on his gardening, people learned information. And as time goes by we must be very careful about how we treat our land and soil with respect, as our ancestors did.