South Carolina women devoted themselves with much success to agricultural experiments. Henry Laurens brought from Italy and naturalized the olive-tree, and his daughter, Martha Laurens Ramsay, experimented with the preservation of the fruit until her productions equalled the imported olives. Catharine Laurens Ramsay manufactured opium of the first quality. In 1755 Henry Laurens’ garden in Ansonborough was enriched with every curious vegetable product from remote quarters of the world that his extensive mercantile connections enabled him to procure, and the soil and climate of South Carolina to cherish. He introduced besides olives, capers, limes, ginger, guinea grass, Alpine strawberries (bearing nine months in the year), and many choice varieties of fruits. This garden was superintended by his wife, Mrs. Elinor Laurens. Mrs. Martha Logan was a famous botanist and florist. She was born in 1702, and was the daughter of Robert Daniel, one of the last proprietary governors of South Carolina. When fourteen years old, she married George Logan, and all her life treasured a beautiful and remarkable garden. When seventy years old, she compiled from her knowledge and experience a regular treatise on gardening, which was published after her death, with the title _The Garden’s Kalendar_. It was for many years the standard work on gardening in that locality. Mrs. Hopton and Mrs. Lamboll were early and assiduous flower-raisers and experimenters in the eighteenth century, and Miss Maria Drayton, of Drayton Hall, a skilled botanist. The most distinguished female botanist of colonial days was Jane Colden, the daughter of Governor Cadwallader Colden, of New York. Her love of the science was inherited from her father, the friend and correspondent of Linnæus, Collinson, and other botanists. She learned a method of taking leaf-impressions in printers’ ink, and sent careful impressions of American plants and leaves to the European collectors. John Ellis wrote of her to Linnæus in April, 1758:-- This young lady merits your esteem, and does honor to your system. She has drawn and described four hundred plants in your method. Her father has a plant called after her Coldenia. Suppose you should call this new genus Coldenella or any other name which might distinguish her. Peter Collinson said also that she was the first lady to study the Linnæan system, and deserved to be celebrated. Another tribute to her may be found in a letter of Walter Rutherford’s:-- From the middle of the Woods this Family corresponds with all the learned Societies in Europe. His daughter Jenny is a Florist and Botanist. She has discovered a great number of Plants never before described and has given their Properties and Virtues, many of which are found useful in Medicine and she draws and colours them with great Beauty. Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh is in the number of her correspondents. N. B. She makes the best cheese I ever ate in America.