RUK^VL CEMETEKIE8. 



grown asbamed of the neglected, exposed, weedy, forlorn looking spot called the grave 

 yard, and have tried their hand at fencing and planting, and otherwise giving them 

 somewhat of an aspect of culture and civilized care. AVe are too happy and too 

 thankful that such a spirit is abroad among us to grumble at any errors that are, or 

 have been, committed in the management of these cemeteries ; but as new ones are 

 almost every day being laid out, we feel it our duty to offer a few hints that may 

 cuard their founders against errors that others, it seems to us, have fallen into. 



Mr. Downing remarked in the article we have already quoted from, that "the 

 great attraction of these cemeteries, to the mass of the community, is not in the fact 

 that they are burial places, or solemn places of meditation for the friends of the 

 deceased, or striking exhibitions of ornamental sculpture, though all these have their 

 influence. All those might be realized in a burial ground planted with straight lines 

 of w^illows and sombre avenues of evergreens. The true secret of the attraction lies in 

 the natural beauty of the sites, and in the tasteful and harmonious embellishment of 

 these sites by art." 



The cemeteries of the larger cities, where competent artists and workmen are more 

 easily obtained, exhibit in many of their embellishments both taste and harmony, 

 though in the best there are very many exceptions. In the interior, however, where 

 the grounds have been laid out by mere land surveyors, and where every improvement 

 has been made under the direction of persons not having the shadow of a qualification, 

 one finds, as might well be expected, scarcely anything but a repetition of blunders — 

 violations of taste the most aggravated, and a worse than waste of both labor and 

 material. When a city, or a village, or a company of individuals, resolve upon found- 

 ing a rural cemetery, and expend their money upon a tract of ground which we will 

 suppose the most suitable that can be had, their first step should be to secure the 

 assistance of a person properly qualified to appreciate every feature of it, every outline 

 and undulation of its surface, and every tree and shrub that nature may have planted 

 on it. 



It seems very singular that people should not act in these as in their ordinary 

 business affairs. If a company of capitalists unite in constructing a steamship they 

 will not be likely to employ a blacksmith, or a shoemaker, or a gardener, to build it. 

 If they would do so foolish a thing, they certainly would be placed in an insane 

 asylum directly. Now the building of a ship is just as possible to the gardener, or the 

 blacksmith, or the shoemaker, as the laying out of a cemetery would be to any of 

 these craftsmen. Acting like wise men, they will employ the most competent ship- 

 builder that can be found — one who has mastered the theory and practice of his 

 profession by long years of study and practice. So in everything that people wish to 

 be well done, they employ competent and skilful workmen. It happens, however, 

 that in certain communities the landscape gardener is not a recognized individual. 

 People who would not deny the necessity of employing a good artist to paint a land- 

 scape on canvass, do not understand the necessity of employing a skilful and well-trained 

 artist to work a beautiful landscape out of nature's raw material. Here is a piece of 

 ground for a rural cemetery — it is to be laid out — intersected with walks and avenues 



