LAYING OUT OF GROUNDS 



and graceful deceits by which gardeners some- 

 times win their lesser honors. Great simpHcity 

 of design is also essential, not only as in keep- 

 ing with the sepulchral offices of such ground, 

 but being, to a certain extent, proof against 

 the harm which an elaborate plan must suffer 

 by injudicious planting in private inclosures. 



From the fact last named— the giving over 

 of individual lots to private caprices of plant- 

 ing or arrangement, no consummate or finished 

 gardening can, of course, ever be looked for 

 in our cemeteries. The general effect will be 

 at best spotty, and lack coherence. The trail 

 of the principal drives or walks, the establish- 

 ment of the capital masses of foliage, the or- 

 dering and adaptation of the encircling belt, 

 the finish and appointments of the entrance- 

 way — these are the objects which will demand 

 taste and skill for their happy execution. To 

 twirl a great labyrinth of serpentine paths 

 through a forest, shaven clean of its under- 

 brush — to throw rustic bridges over a flow of 

 sluggish ditch-water, and to construct grottoes 

 where they sit like mountebanks in the hollows 

 of the hills, is not good gardening for ceme- 

 teries — if it be good anywhere. If there be 

 great reach of irregular surface, there should 

 be sunny glades to contrast with masses of 



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