THE 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE, 



APRIL, 1843. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. The Principles of Landscape- Gardening and of Landscape- 

 Architecture applied to the Laying out of Public Cemeteries and 

 the Improvement of Churchyards ; including Observations on the 

 Working and General Management of Cemeteries and Burial- 

 Grounds. By the Conductor. 



{Continued from p. 105.) 



As we anticipated, we have received a variety of communi- 

 cations relative to tlie article on the uses of cemeteries in our 

 last Number. In one circumstance almost all the writers 

 agree, viz. in expressing their surprise at the great durability 

 of human bones : of this durability, however, there can be no 

 doubt. One correspondent, a medical man, has " seen bones 

 in churchyards in a state of incipient decay," and he therefore 

 concludes that there must be " an ascertainable period when the 

 decay is complete, and the bones, as weU as the flesh, are 

 returned to dust." On this subject we would observe that, in 

 crowded churchyards which have been in use perhaps for cen- 

 turies, the bones have in all probability been frequently dug 

 up and reinterred, and that the changes in regard to soil and 

 moisture, in which they were placed each time of removing, 

 must no doubt have had a considerable influence in accelerating 

 their decomposition. Add also, that the soil of burying-grounds 

 which have been long in use has been rendered so porous, as to 

 be as permeable to water, and consequently to air, as sand or 

 gravel. In short, it has become like the surface soil of a garden 

 or a field which has been long cultivated and well manured ; and 

 every gardener knows that such soil is so porous, and so little 

 liable to cohere even by pressure, that it may be used to fill in 

 drains. We agree, therefore, with our correspondent, that 

 bones have every chance of decaying sooner in a burying-ground 

 that has been long used than in fresh soil ; though we do not 

 consider this a suflicient argument for continuing to bury in such 

 grounds after they have been once filled. On the contrary, 

 as the porosity of the soil must necessarily be as favourable 

 for the escape into the atmosphere of the gases of decomposi- 

 tion, as it is for the sinking into it of rain water, it shows the 

 3d Ser.— 1843. IV. i. 



