14 Old Time Gardens 



toms and fashions, their fertile soil and favorable 

 climate, and their many slaves, all contributed to 

 the successful making of elaborate gardens. Even 

 as early as 1682 South Carolina gardens were de- 

 clared to be "adorned with such Flowers as to the 

 Smell or Eye are pleasing or agreeable, as the Rose, 

 Tulip, Lily, Carnation, &c." William Byrd wrote 

 of the terraced gardens of Virginia homes. Charles- 

 ton dames vied with each other in the beauty of 

 their gardens, and Mrs. Logan, when seventy years 

 old, in 1779, wrote a treatise called The Gardener s 

 Kalendar. Eliza Lucas Pinckney of Charleston 

 was devoted to practical floriculture and horticulture. 

 Her introduction of indigo raising into South Caro- 

 lina revolutionized the trade products of the state 

 and brought to it vast wealth. Like many other 

 women and many men of wealth and culture at that 

 time, she kept up a constant exchange of letters, 

 seeds, plants, and bulbs with English people of like 

 tastes. She received from them valuable English 

 seeds and shrubs ; and in turn she sent to England 

 what were so eagerly sought by English flower 

 raisers, our native plants. The good will and na- 

 tional pride of ship captains were enlisted ; even 

 young trees -of considerable size were set in hogs- 

 heads, and transported, and cared for during the 

 long voyage. 



The garden at Mount Vernon is probably the 

 oldest in Virginia still in original shape. In Mary- 

 land are several fine, formal gardens which do not 

 date, however, to colonial days ; the beautiful one 

 at Hampton, the home of the Ridgelys, in Balti- 



