but tlicv will alwava be Rtintcd, sickly, and produce but ordinary fruit; but it is more 

 often the ca-^e that they die in the etfort to live, and then conies the bitter denunciations 

 on the luirservnian who reared them, tlie adverse climate, and sometimes the ItK-ality, 

 and even the soil, which, under favorable culture, would l>c just the \h\ufr f<»r them, is 

 blamed for the lack of those qualities which man, in his indolence, or grasping after 

 present gain, has taken from it. 



VILLAGE CEMETERIES. 



EY "WILLIAM U. SCOTT, ADRIAN, MICU. 



Away tVom the larger cities, the iinjirovemcnt of the quiet abodes of the dead is not 

 keojiing pace with the progress of cultivation and improvement in the living. A\ hy 

 the large cities — who must usually of necessity bury their dead on high-priced ground 

 — should more liberally and more becomingly provide for the dear ones whose aifec- 

 tion remains only in the memory, than the village and the country, where land is more 

 abundant and labor cheaper, is a question I need not attempt to answer. Tliere are 

 many good reasons why there should now exist a tastefully kept burial-place contigu- 

 ous to every village, and in every rural district. IIow many, think you, Mr. Editor, 

 are there of this character? You may range the whole country through, and I will 

 venture that it will not have shown you a dozen whose keeping is creditable to tlie 

 wealth and supposed affection and kindi'ed of tlie large portion of the community 

 whose certain destiny it is to provide some kind of a place for the dead. Nearly every 

 community has its church edifices — pretty much np to the means of that community, 

 too, in convenience and decoration; — but while we are taught in them that the spirit 

 of the good shall have a beautiful home beyond the grave, the liearer must instinctively 

 and gloomily turn to the destiny of the mortal casement left vacant by its departure. 

 He can not help thinking of the desolate home that barbarous custom has thought 

 good enough for such bodies as his when the spirit shall have left it. And perhaps he 

 can not lielp thinking, too, how much better the accommodation within those decorated 

 walls for his carnal portion — whose wants the religious teacher tells him should be as 

 nothing — than that same earthy tenement is likely to get when it can no longer sit 

 upon the pleasant cushion. Eeflections of this nature may quite naturally suggest the 

 thought tliat there must be an essential want in our education, when the most devoted 

 of parents, children, and friends, allow the remains of their relatives to pass from their 

 pleasant homes on earth to such dreary and desolate habitations beneath it Here 

 some barbarous nations may shame us. 



Ilappily there may be traced a somewhat coincident change for the better in the 

 school-house and the burial-place. While through the early influences of well beauti- 

 fied, well ventilated, and convenient school structures, opportunity is aff'orded for the 

 refinement as well as health of our youth, there has been some progress from the 

 barren "grave-yard" to the properly embellished cemetery. But this progress has 

 been nearly all confined to the large cities. Thousands of villages in America have 

 chosen their interment grounds almost solely with reference to first cost; scarcely 

 an eye to beauty c>f position, or with reference to protection. Generally, ground 



