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IN the course of our last volume we 

 offered a few suggestions on the lay- 

 ing out and arrangement of cemetery 

 grounds, and promised to follow up 

 the subject with remarks on trees suit- 

 able for their embellishment. We 

 have been reminded of this promise by 

 several letters now on our table, and 

 •we proceed to redeem it. 



First of all, we must observe that 

 there are people who seem to regard 

 trees as not being among the appro- 

 priate and indispensable ornaments 

 of the cemetery. They erect massive 

 vaults and monuments of granite or 

 marble, and plant neither tree, shrub, 

 nor flower near them. This taste, if we may so call it, we can not admire. Trees, 

 it seems to us, are of all others the most appropriate ornaments for the tomb ; the 

 shade and shelter which they impart are soothing and agreeable, and there are ideas 

 suggested by their outward forms and moral and historical associations, which address 

 themselves to the reflecting, intelligent mind, quite as forcibly and distinctly as do 

 lettered inscriptions on marble. The literature of ail nations has given a language to 

 trees and plants and flowers, and made them symbolize in one way or another nearly 

 every feeling and sentiment of the human heart. Especially is life, death, and immor- 

 tality, represented by their varied forms and characters, and ever-changing aspects and 

 conditions. As gardening and arboricultural taste increases among us, the literature 

 of trees and plants — the most refining and delightful of studies — will receive more 

 attention, and the work of planting and embellishing grounds will become much more 

 of an intellectual and poetical labor than it now is. 



The man who values his trees or plantations merely for their contributions to his 

 physical wants or luxuries, is to be pitied, even in this eminently utilitarian age. For 

 our own part, we love the trees we have planted, as we love our children ; and when 

 we gather their fruit, or loiter beneath their branches, we are carried back through the 

 days that have passed since we committed their roots to the earth, and set them out 

 on their journey of life. We think how thej'^ and ourselves have jogged along and 

 grown old together, and we almost hear them speak to us with the affection of a 

 brother or a sister. Who can look upon the tree planted by the tomb of a friend, 

 without reading in it the history and recollections of the past, and becoming attached 

 to it as he would to some precious souvenir. 



April 1, 1864. 



No. IV. 



