Madison’s Faculty of Cultivation – Wisdom & Herbal Harvest

August abundance fills the Revolution Era Garden at the Transylvania Heritage Museum. Trail of Tears beans are producing in the Three Sisters plot, while the corn, though still modest in height, is producing tassels. Sunchokes tower over six feet and will bloom soon; their tubers can be dug and enjoyed all winter long. The Cherokee Medicine Wheel is especially prolific this month, sometimes exceeding its bounds—but that is perfectly all right, as the bees and butterflies delight in it. And of course, the herbs are thriving.

James Madison, fourth president of the United States and lifelong student of the land, treated Montpelier as both a working farm and an outdoor laboratory. He kept detailed weather journals that recorded plantings and harvests, experimented with crop rotations, cover crops such as clover, and manures to restore exhausted soils, and diversified beyond tobacco into grains and other useful plants. Jefferson once called him “the best farmer in the world.” 

In the family gardens, herbs were not confined to a separate bed but interplanted among vegetables; lavender appears most often in the records, sown alongside tansy, sorrel, and hyssop, with peas sometimes planted right next to the lavender rows. Madison valued plants that sustained both body and soil.

In his 1818 address to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, he observed, “The faculty of cultivating the earth, and of rearing animals, by which food is increased beyond the spontaneous supplies of nature, belongs to man alone.” This insight, drawn from decades of trials at Montpelier, is enriched in our own garden by the “Gathering of Voices”—Cherokee Three Sisters plantings and the inventive provision patches of enslaved Africans. 

This season we have also carefully saved seed from our early peas (a Monticello variety) and from the Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, continuing the tradition of careful observation and sharing that Madison practiced.

Join us on Saturday, August 15 at noon as we harvest herbs and make herbed butter to taste and take home. Families, students, and history enthusiasts are welcome. Please let us know in advance if you are bringing a group so we can prepare materials accordingly.

August reminds us that the same thoughtful cultivation Madison celebrated—of soil, of plants, and of knowledge passed across cultures—still yields abundance. If you have not yet visited the garden this season, now is a perfect time to stop by, enjoy the late-summer fullness, and share in the harvest.