THE CEMETERY. 303 



bark-cracking on account of the protection the branches 

 afford the stem. The effect of the employment of this 

 weeping plant in the churchyard is specially happy, for 

 it hardly represents a real shrub, which is, in this case, 

 scarcely admitted, and yet it breaks, with its irregular, 

 graceful lines, any possible monotony among the statuesque 

 dwarf evergreens. Of course, the ivy on the wall and the 

 crimson autumnal tints of the Japan creeper ( Ampelopsis 

 tricuspidata) are here in all their glory. Altogether, there 

 is an organic completeness in the selection of the various 

 plants that proves the lawn-planter to have had a genuine 

 sympathy for his work, as well as abundant practical 

 knowledge. 



THE CEMETERY. 



The excessive and tasteless use of stonework in our 

 cemeteries has been unnaturally fostered by love of display 

 and by the fact that cut stone is more permanent and needs 

 less care than shrubs and flowers, which are not only diffi- 

 cult to select to-day, but liable to perish to-morrow. Hence 

 grew up the vulgar fashion of using stone inordinately, 

 nominally in honor of the dead, but often merely for the 

 sake of fashionable display. 



Plants, however, have long been employed, entirely in- 

 dependent of what the fashion might be, and in their use, 

 therefore, lies the really heart-felt offering to the memory 

 of the departed. More than twenty years ago, one or two 

 cemeteries, notably Spring Grove, Cincinnati ; and Laurel 

 Hill, Philadelphia, attempted a reform which aimed at 

 doing away with fenced and hedged burial plots. Hartford 



