650 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



eighteentli century tells us : " Indigo is of several Sorts. Wliat 

 we have gone mostly upon is the Sort generally cultivated in the 

 Sugar Islands, which requires a high loose Soil, tolerably rich, and 

 is our annual Plant, but the Nilco (i. e., wild) sort which is com- 

 mon in this Country is much more hardy and is perennial. The 

 Stalk dies every year, but it shoots up again next Spring. The 

 Indigo made from it is of as good quality as the other, and it will 

 grow on very indifferent Land, provided it be dry and loose.'' 



Experiments with indigo are noted as early as 1670. The ear- 

 liest records of the colony contain allusions to "indico'' as one of 

 the sources of wealth. After a few years the making of indigo 

 languished for a time. A London writer * of 1682 says: "Indigo 

 they have made, and that good. The reason why they have de- 

 sisted I can not learn." The industry was revived to some extent 

 in Governor Thomas Smith's administration the landgrave and 

 wealthy planter who is said to have introduced the rice culture 

 by planting in his garden at Charles-Town a bag of seed rice 

 from Madagascar. 



Edisto Island was early given to indigo culture, and the 

 quality of its product became noted. The better soil for the pro- 

 duction of indigo led many of the Huguenot immigrants to leave 

 their first home at St. James on the Santee, and settle in St. 

 Stephen's Parish. Yet these early efforts in indigo culture were 

 not a marked success. We are told by an old writer that " all 

 creatures about an indigo plantation are starved, whereas about 

 a rice one, which abounds with provisions for man and beast, 

 they thrive and flourish." 



The honor of raising indigo-making to a profitable industry 

 belongs to an enterprising young lady named Eliza Lucas. The 

 story of her efforts is told in Ramsay's History of South Caro- 

 lina, f George Lucas, the father of Eliza, was Governor of An- 

 tigua, in the West Indies, and also the owner of a plantation in 

 South Carolina at Wappoo Cut. 



In 1739 the daughter, who had become familiar with the crop 

 and its methods in the West Indies, came to live in South Caro- 

 lina. Her father often sent to her tropical seeds to be planted for 

 her amusement on the plantation. The fact that a plant similar 

 to the indigo of the West Indies grew spontaneously in the prov- 

 ince suggested the adaptedness of the crop to this climate. Ac- 

 cordingly, some seed was sent, which Eliza planted in March, 



* Quotation from A Compleat Discovery of the State of South Carolina, prepared by T. 

 A., Gent, clerk in his Majestie's Ship Richmond, which was sent out in the year 1680 to in- 

 quire into the Stnte of that Country by his Majestie's Special Command. To be sold by 

 Mrs. Grover in Pelican Court, Little Britain, 1682. 



t See Ramsay's History, vol. ii, p. 138, etc. 



