MAGNOLIA GARDENS, _on the Ashley River_: Distinguished authors have heaped glowing compliments on the enchantment that is Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, “a sight unrivalled,” said a writer in the _Chicago Tribune_. The fame of these gardens has gone wide and far. Thomas P. Lesesne, of Charleston, was in the great Kew Gardens, London. Coming to the azalea section he was surprised to find a sign declaring to all who came that way that if one would see the azalea in the zenith of its beauty, he should visit Magnolia-on-the-Ashley, near Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America! In Kew! Think of that! John Galsworthy, Owen Wister and other notables have shed superlatives in describing the gardens. In this show place on the Ashley River, the Reverend John Grimke Drayton planted the first _Azalea Indica_. They had been imported from the East to Philadelphia in 1843, but, the Pennsylvania climate being too rigorous for them, Mr. Drayton was invited to see what he could do with them. And what he has done with them brings thousands of people from distant places each spring when the azaleas are in the full glory of their bloom! The gardens, about twenty-five acres in extent, have what is declared to be the most valuable collection of the Camellia Japonica; there are more than 250 varieties. They come into bloom in the winter, and the gardens are open for their inspection. Carlisle Norwood Hastie, present owner of Magnolia, is grandson of the Reverend Mr. Drayton, an Episcopalian minister. Two hundred years the property has been in possession of the Drayton family. During the Revolution the Colonial mansion was burned and a second building was burned during the War for Southern Independence. Mr. Hastie has purchased the old Tupper house in Charleston (its site on Meeting Street) for rëerection at Magnolia-on-Ashley. Moss-covered oak and cypress trees, bordering mirroring lagoons, furnish a bewitching background for the gardens, with the Ashley River in front.