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Show NEARBY AND YONDER Off the Eeaten Path to Unusual Un-usual Places and Things By T. T. MAXEY W.NU Sc-rvk-e Magnolia Gardens ON" THE little Ashley river near quaint old Charleston, S. C, there is a twenty-four acres Magnolia garden that Is said to be the most beautiful In tlds world. Au enraptured enrap-tured visitor long age declared It to be "A garden spot so lovely It seems to have been dropped from a fairy tale." The magnificence and the enchantment enchant-ment of this fairy-like place grow with passing years. Each March, and April It unfolds a riotous glory of azalea, japonica and wisteria blossoms, which run the gamut of color from the most delicate shades of heliotrope and pink to the deepest shades of purple perfuming per-fuming the country roundabout. These gardens are almost a century cen-tury old. Part of a large and worthy estate known as Magnolia-ou-tlie-Ash-ley, they were so named because a lieverend Drayton who planned tlieni brought to them from far-off places a famous azalea and other rare plants. The llower beds are laid out with backgrounds of vines and shrubs, set down amid ancient and ponderous trees. The picture so stirred Owen Wister, the author, that he wrote: "I have seen gardens, many gardens, In England, In France, In Italy; I have seen what can be done In great hothouses, hot-houses, and on great terraces; what can be done under a roof, and what can be done In the open air with the aid of architecture and sculpture, and ornamented land and water, but no horticulture that I have seen devised by mortal man approaches the earthly enchantment of these azaleas." |