304 0R2JAMENTAL GARDEiflNG. 



fashioned graye-yards, which we all have met throughout 

 the hmd, in a terribly neglected condition, overgrown 

 with weeds, rank grass, and tangled brush. The only 

 way in which the condition of these can be reconciled, is 

 to look upon them as relics of a pioneer period. They 

 are like the * Hog-huts" of past generations, old and 

 faulty, but endeared to us by the ties that bind the de- 

 parted dead to the living. Everywhere in the older sec- 

 tions of the country, log-houses and barns have given 

 place to tasteful and often costly buildings, representatives 

 of the increased prosperity of the community, but many 

 times in the same community the burial place is still in 

 the ^'log-hut" style. 



If the people were satisfied to have them thus, no 

 words of condemnation of such grounds — suggestive of 

 cold and selfish forgetfulness — would be too strong. But 

 believing that the dissatisfaction with these is wide- 

 spread, and that the present condition is due more to not 

 knowing what to do, than to a disposition against doing, 

 we may feel hopeful of better things in time to come. 



Indeed, we think there is enough love for the beautiful, 

 enough wealth and enterprise, and enough respect for the 

 dead in every section of country, to make and keep the 

 burial places nearly or quite as well as those of the large 

 cities to-day are kept. These grounds are usually of a 

 few acres, but the joint property of hundreds of able per- 

 sons, and actually representatives in every community of 

 large sums of money. The arguments that force them- 

 selves upon every one's good sense, in favor of having 

 these small areas in good and even beautiful shape, out 

 of respect for their hallowed use, ought to be overpower- 

 ing in aid of any movement in the direction of their im- 

 provement, and in every neighborhood there ought to be 

 the persons ready to lead in and encourage the work. 



That which contributes most largely to the beauty of 

 the improved city cemeteries, are the garden features in- 



