TILLAGE CEMETERIES. 



been chosen whore water might escape, and where the sexton's spade should not find 

 too much impediment either by stone or clay. But how many' have been set olF from 

 the comer of some treeless field, whose best day of fanning fruition had passed, and 

 whose owner could find no more profitable use to put it to ! A day's ride in almost 

 any part o^ wealthy and cultivated New England will usually sliow many cheerless 

 spots whose purpose is surely marked by broken, leaning, and prostrate stones ; by the 

 twisted mats of decayed grass and briare ; and by the cold, stately, and mocking mon- 

 uments that ostentation raised to presei-ve that same caste in the population of the dead 

 that the names to whose memoiy they were erected, strove to maintain in life. If you 

 step over the stile, you will find as much incongruity as you are likely to find in the 

 same space elsewhere. You will pass the stunted Willows — almost the only tree-life 

 in the spot, and they with scarcely vigor enough, even, to effectively weep. Have a 

 careful eye to briare, and to the snakes with which your imagination at least will people 

 a spot so congenial to their tastes. Look out;, too, for the recumbent, half-visil)le slabs 

 that in the fii-st impulse of grief were made to tell such flattering tales. The virtues 

 of the living for whom they sjieak, seem to have had their full posthumous reward in 

 the flattering or warning lines of the graver's chisel ; for you see no further offering to 

 their memory — nothing else to show that the ground below you holds something 

 osice valuable. The mound of earth has sunk to the surface level or below it, and 

 you will readily conjecture that no shnib nor flower bad ever been planted there. 

 Advancing, occasionally a forlorn Myrtle, stunted Sweet-briar or Blush Rose, will sup- 

 plicatingly peep out at you through the dead and matted grass and weeds, as if hope- 

 ful o{ relief. As your eyes will be entirely open for shade, you will not overlook the 

 more pretending Balsam. Fir, which has found its way into the lot — as stiff and unge- 

 nial as all the rest Here a tall picket fence, mainly white, with red tops, carefully 

 guarding and as happily hiding what it incloses; then another, all black; then another, 

 with white pickets and black tops. With little disposition to linger among associations 

 so forbidding, you will gladly reach the opjwsite side from where you eiitered, and be 

 gratified to find relief for your vision in the naked field beyond. 



In one of the oldest and wealthiest towns of Connecticut, and within a mile of each 

 other, there are two very much such s[X)ts as I have described. One is the depositure 

 of many generations, and was dedicated to the dead in a nider and less cultivated age 

 than the present; but the other has been in use a comparatively short time, and was 

 purchased by wealthy people. The town has a larger average wealth to the individual 

 than any community within my acquaintance; — scarcely any poor people, but full 

 of the wealth of long years of rapid accumulation by the old inhabitants, and the 

 superfluity of Xew York retired merchants. The two miles square whose many well 

 improved eminences look out upon the waters of Long Island Sound, is almost all in 

 tlie highest state of cultivation. Some of the best planted ornamental grounds and ' 

 most elaborate architectural specimens in the country here meet the eye in quick suc- 

 cession. But such neglect of the dead ! — the tamest and least interesting spot, receiv- 

 ing the smallest possible attention — treeless, shiftless. The railroad and the steamer, 

 that every day bear hoine the proprietore to their comfort and luxury, should also, 

 wlien this life is departed, be the medium to carry their remains to some rest less in 

 contrast with the beauties they have enjoyed while living. 



The newer portions of the country have less reason to feel asbamed of their 



