218 Principles of Landscape- Gardening 



Nintldy, To insure the high keeping of monuments of every kind, wlio- 

 ever erected one should, at the time it was put up, pay to the proprietors or 

 directors of the cemetery a sum considered sufficient to preserve it in repair 

 in perpetuity, or for a certain number of years.* Every person having shrubs 

 or flowers planted on a grave, we would require to pay a sum sufficient to 

 keep them trimmed for such a number of years as they njight think fit; or 

 to keep them in order themselves, under the penalty of having them rooted 

 up and grass substituted, if neglected for a period varying according to the 

 kind of plants. Flowers and roses require to be attended to weekly during 

 summer, but evergreen shrubs may grow for years with scarcely any attend- 

 ance. As flowers and low shrubs are very apt to get tawdry when neglected, 

 as soon as keeping them in order ceased to be paid for, or otherwise effected, 

 the plants should be taken up and grass substituted. The turf mounds over 

 graves, and the number-stones (of which, as already observed, there ought to 

 be one to every grave, whether it have a monument or not), ought, of course, 

 to be kept in order by the proprietors of the cemetery. 



Tenthly, No dogs or improper persons ; no smoking, drinking, or even 

 eating ; no running or jumping, laughing, whistling, or singing, or other 

 practice that might indicate a want of reverence for the place, should be per- 

 mitted. No person should be allowed to walk on the graves, or to cross 

 from one walk or green path to another in places where the ground was filled 

 with graves. 



Eleventhly, Wherever there was the least risk of a grave being reopened for 

 a second interment, or for any other purpose, or even where it was desired to 

 protect tiie bones in the case of some future unforeseen change taking place, 

 such as making a road through the cemetery or building on it, we would intro- 

 duce a guard or follower of stone over the last-interred coffin, as already 

 described, p. 98. and p. 216. 



If the foregoing rules were rigidly attended to, cemeteries, whether in 

 town or country, would be as healthy as gardens or pleasure-grounds, and 

 would form the most interesting of all places for conteniplative recreation. 

 As one great object in forming and managing a cemetery, whether small 

 or large, is to render it inviting by being ornamental and highly kept, it is not 

 desirable that all the monuments should be crowded together in one place, 

 and all the graves without monuments placed in another part of the ground. 

 It appears better that the monuments should be seen one after another, with 

 plain spaces intervening ; and for this reason it ought to be a rule that any 

 person purchasing a grave may choose the spot where he will have it, pro- 

 vided he makes known whether he intends to erect any monument and what 

 sort. This rule, however, must be taken in connexion with another, 

 viz. that it is desirable to have a considerable display of monuments on the 

 borders laid out on purpose for them along the roads and main walks, and 

 along the boundary wall. The finest ancient monuments in the churchyards 

 of Scotland, and we know nothing to equal them in England out of West- 

 minster Abbey, are the sepulchral structures projected from the walls of 

 Grey Friars churchyard in Edinburgh, and the Cathedral burying-ground at 

 Glasgow. These in general are not vaults, catacombs, or brick graves, but 

 interments in the free soil, where the husband and wife lie side by side, and 



* The sum per annum, and the number of 3'ears during which the party 

 wishes the monument, gravestone, shrubs, or flowers, kept in order, being 

 agreed on, it is only necessary to find, by the annuity tables (say, Inwood's, 

 12mo, 5s.), the present value of this sum, at the rate of interest obtainable in 

 the public funds. The sum required for keeping a monument in repair, even 

 in perpetuity, is by no means so great as might be expected. The ordinary 

 charge for keeping a common grave and gravestone in repair is only \s. a year, 

 and the present value of an annuity of that amount, payable for ever, reckoning 

 the interest of money at 2^ per cent, is 21. Hence, 51. paid down would give 

 2s. 6d. a year for ever, which is quite enough for most monuments. 



