71 



By the act of the legislature, authorizing the Horticultural Society 

 to establish this Cemetery, it is placed under the protection of the 

 laws, and consecrated to the perpetual occupancy of the dead. Being 

 connected with ilie adjacent experimenlal garden, it will be under the 

 constant inspection of the Society's Gardener, and thus possess ad- 

 vantages, in reference to the care and neatness with which it will be 

 kept, not usually found in places of burial. A formal act of dedica- 

 tion, with religious solemnities, will impart to it a character of sanc- 

 tity, and consecrate it to the sacred purposes for which it is destined. 



It is a matter of obvious consideration, tiial, with the rapid increase 

 of the city of Boston, many years cannot elapse, before the deposit of 

 the dead within its limits must cease. It is already attended with 

 considerable difficulty, and is open to serious olijections. The estab- 

 lishment now contemplated, presents an opportunity for all, who wiish 

 to enjoy it, of providing a place of burial for those, tor whom it is their 

 duty to make such provision. The space is ample, affording room for 

 as large a number of lots, as may be required for a considerable length 

 of time ; and the price at which they are now to be purchased, it is 

 believed, is considerably less than that of tombs, in the usual places of 

 their construction. 



Although no one, whose feelings and principles are sound, can 

 regard, without tenderness and delicacy, the question, where he will 

 deposit the remains of those, whom it is his duly to follow to their last 

 home, yet it may be feared, that too little thought has been had for the 

 decent aspect of our places of sepulture, or their highest adaptation to 

 their great object. Our burial places are, in the cities, crowded till 

 they are full ; nor, in general, does any other object, either in town 

 or country, appear to have been had in view in thein, than that of 

 confining the remains of the departed to the smallest portion of earth 

 that will hide them. Trees, whose inexpressible beauty has been 

 provided by the hand of the Creator as the great ornament of the 

 earth, have rarely been planted about our grave-yards ; the enclosures 

 are generally inadequate and neglected, the graves indecently crowded 

 together, and often, after a few years, disturbed; and the whole ap- 

 pearance as little calculated as possible to invite the visits of the 

 seriously disposed, to tranquillize the feelings of surviving friends, and 

 to gratify that disposition which would lead us to pay respect to their 

 ashes. 



Nor has it hitherto been in the power even of those, who might be 

 able and willing to do it, to remedy these evils, as far as they are 

 themselves concerned. Great objections exist to a place of sepulture 

 in a private field ; particularly this, that in a few years it is likely to 

 pass into the liands of those, who will take no interest in preserving its 

 sacred deposit from the plough. Tlie mother of Washington lies 

 buried in a field, the property of a person not related to her family, 

 and in a spot which cannot now be identified. In the public grave- 

 yard it is not always in the power of an individual to appropriate to a 

 single place of burial, space enough for the purposes of decent and 

 respectful ornament. 



The proposed establishment seems to .^urnish every facility for grati- 

 fying the desire, which must rank among the purest and strongest of 

 the human heart, and which would have been much more frequently 

 indicated, but for the very serious, and sometimes insuperable obstacles 



