CEMETERIES AND PARKS. 83 



good order by cutting the grass, making or keeping up mounds, 

 filling up depressions, fertilizing the soil as often as is necessary, 

 and cleaning monuments. 



Oakwood Cemetery, Troy, N. Y. We give you as the most 

 accurate and best description of this superbly located cemeter}' 

 the following account taken from the "Troy Daily Times" of 

 November 7, 1889 : 



"The cemetery stands at the summit of an abrupt line of hills 

 overlooking the Hudson, and the view takes in a range of distant 

 hills and mountains of nearly one hundred miles in extent. With 

 the purchases of recent years there is a length of the home-hills 

 of a mile and a half which the cemetery now covers. At all the 

 bends in the course of its western hilly outline there are stretches 

 either of new landscape or of different views of spots that are 

 enchanting. 



The territory of Oakwood cemetery is partly in Troy and partly 

 in Lansingburgh. The Earl chapel stands in Lansingburgh, but 

 the dividing line is just south of the building. Although lying 

 within the limits of two corporations, Oakwood is a corporation of 

 itself and independent of the others. It is truly a city of the 

 dead, respectable for the number of its inhabitants, which has 

 reached nearly ten thousand. 



It is no easy task to la}' out a cemetery so that while it shall 

 have a park-like effect it shall also conform to the purposes of 

 burial, but it is generally conceded that Superintendent Boetcher 

 has been eminently successful in this direction. About five years 

 ago the trustees decided to make the western entrance not only 

 useful by locating its offices there, but attractive as well to the 

 many to whom that ingress is most convenient. With this end in 

 view property west of the Fitchburg railroad bridge was purchased 

 and enclosed, and will always be reserved for ornamental purposes. 

 The shrubs and trees planted on this section have made progress, 

 and in a few years will, with the beautiful lawns, add much to the 

 attractiveness of the surrounding property. The ground enclosed 

 at the western entrance is two hundred and fifty-six feet wide by 

 more than seven hundred feet in length. 



The offices of the company are in a fine brick building with 

 stone trimmings, at the western or Cemetery avenue entrance. 

 The gates to this entrance are handsome granite monuments, so 

 designed that they will some day serve the purpose of pedestals, 



