AN OLD INDUSTRY. 649 



AN OLD INDUSTRY. 



By MARY H. LEONARD. 



T~N the rich lands along the river banks of South Carolina, par- 

 -L ticularly in the Peedee section, there could be seen a few years 

 ago an occasional vat or tank, made of the durable cypress tim- 

 ber, and raised high above the ground on wooden posts. Perhaps 

 before the present time the last of these vats has disappeared ; 

 yet these recent traces of an old industry tell of a time when the 

 making of indigo was the most important source of wealth of a 

 prosperous colony. For fifty years, extending from a little before 

 the middle of the eighteenth century to its last decade, when the 

 invention of the cotton gin changed the direction of southern 

 enterprise, indigo-making in South Carolina exceeded all other 

 industries in importance. 



To-day not an ounce of indigo is prepared for market purposes 

 within the State. The cypress boards of the "beaters" and 

 "steepers" have been converted into other structures. The 

 records of the methods and profits of the industry have been 

 / shelved in the archives of the once flourishing Winyaw Indigo 

 Society, whose old hall in Georgetown has been given over to 

 the use of a modern graded school. The wild indigo still grows 

 abundantly in the woods, but its associations are foreign to the 

 thoughts of the present industrial generation. 



There are two species of plants native to South Carolina from 

 which indigo for market purposes has sometimes been prepared. 

 The most familiar of these is the Baptisia tinctoria, of the order 

 LeguminoscB, commonly called " wild indigo," a branching herb 

 with insignificant yellow blossoms and small, bluish-green leaves 

 which blacken in drying. It grows in dry, sandy soil in all the 

 eastern States, and is abundant along the woody roadsides of 

 New England, where it is often picked to put over the heads of 

 horses on the road as a protection against worrying flies. 



The other indigo-bearing plant was known as "false indigo" 

 or " bastard indigo." It is the AmorpJia fruticosa, a shrubby plant, 

 also of the order LeguminoscB, but bearing bluish-purple blossoms. 

 A coarse kind of dye was formerly prepared from its young shoots. 



In the)palmy days of indigo-making the dye generally thought 

 to be of finest quality was obtained from a cultivated plant simi- 

 lar to the " wild indigo " a native of Hindostan, but introduced 

 into South Carolina from the West Indies. A writer * of the 



* This quotation is taken from A Description of South Carolina prepared by Order of 

 Governor Glen, and containing Curious and Interesting Particulars relating to the Civil 

 Natural, and Commercial History of the Colony .vithin Forty Years (1710-1760). 

 VOL. XLVI. 49 



