REPORTS OF AUXILIARY SOCIETIES. 2S3 



INGHAM COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The meetings of this society are reported monthly for the Lansing Republi- 

 can and the following abstract is made by the compiler of this volume. 

 At the January meeting Wm. Appleton read a good paper on 



DESIGl^r, MANAGEMENT, AND KEEPING OF CEMETERIES. 



Wo quote somewhat largely from it as follows: 



The ground plan of a cemetery differs but little from the plan of any other 

 landscape; one thing, however, may differ a little. The drives or roads of a 

 cemetery are also its surface drains, hence the parts used for interment pur- 

 poses should be made by grading (if they are not so already) more or less de- 

 scending to the drives, with this difference; any plan that would be good in 

 any other grounds is equally good for a cemetery. A well planned cemetery 

 must also have a much greater amount of road than ordinary grounds, because 

 access must be provided to all its parts for heavy laden teams. There being 

 no part of a cemetery which is not liable to have a monument erected 

 thereon, the liauling of which and the necessary foundation, would of neces- 

 cessity trespass upon, deface, and injure adjacent burial lots, to the damage and 

 annoyance of their owners, unless the designer had provided, either by the 

 regular drives or suitable alleys, a wagon way to each lot. The roads of a 

 place of this character should always be of a width proportioned to their length- 

 I mean by this, if the grounds are of small extent, the drives should not be too 

 broad, a wide roadway having a tendency to shorten curves and make them 

 appear too sharp, and thus destroy the beauty of what was intended to be a 

 flowing outline. Drives that are too wide also give the appearance of too much 

 road. To avoid this as much as possible, it is well to plant heavily of shrubs 

 in the angles formed by the junction of two or more roads. Attention to every 

 detail is necessary to obtain the best results. The beauties of a cemetery are 

 mainly, pleasing slopes, graceful curves, green grass, well-formed growing trees, 

 to contrast with its gravel roads, the whole relieved by its wealth of sculptured 

 stone. In i:)lanting trees for ornament in a cemetery, perhaps a greater propor- 

 tion of evergreens is allowable than in other grounds. First, they are symbols of 

 eternity, and second, they enliven a winter scene by their beautiful form and 

 color, — for alas! our visits to a necropolis are not confined to balmy summer, 

 but also in dreary winter do we have to deposit our precious jewels in their last 

 resting place ; and in whatever season we may be called upon to perform the 

 last sad rites over mortality, it is our endeavor to lighten the burden of woe. 

 The feeling of awe which must possess every right-minded person when brought 

 into the presence of the grim monster, death, should be tempered with a feel- 

 ing of grateful dependence on our Creator, and of resignation to his divine will 

 and wisdom; and to be in sympathy with this feeling by an appeal to the out- 

 ward senses is the artist's desire in planning cemetery grounds. To do this 

 most effecting is the masterpiece of the art. 



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In building a cemetery we are not only honoring the dead, and thereby exer- 

 cising a very natural attribute, but we are also teaching the living. How 



