480 Principles of Landscape- Gardening 



gravel walk, with a border between that walk and the boundary fence. The 

 next remedy for the evil of rank grass and weeds is, to carry off as much as 

 possible of the surface water. This may be effected by forming the surface 

 in such a manner as to favour the descent of the water which falls on it to 

 gratings connected with drains, or to surface gutters, which shall carry the 

 water out of the churchyard. The tile-draining system may in many cases be 

 applied under the green paths and gravel walks ; and, where there are springs, 

 it is almost needless to state that deep underground drains should be made 

 under the main walk. By thus effectually drying the surface, the grass will 

 grow much less luxuriantly and be easier kept under by mowing, clipping, or 

 shearing, than when left in the moist state now so general in churchyards. 



The grass should be kept constantly very closely cropped, by the scythe, 

 the hedge-shears, the sheep-shears, or the hook. In some churchyards 

 the grave mounds are so clumsily made, and laid up in such rough lumps, 

 that it is difficult to mow the grass which grows on them, and in this case the 

 reaping-hook or shears ought to be used. In most parishes there are aged 

 persons, male or female, who would gladly undertake this work ; and a very 

 good mode of getting it executed would be to divide the ground into portions, 

 and let out the keeping of each portion to persons whose pride it would 

 be to keep their charge in as high order as possible. B}' this means some in- 

 terest would be given to what is now a heartless kind of labour, and the com- 

 petition would insure efficiency. The mowers or clippers would soon discover 

 that the shorter they kept the grass the less it would grow, and the less would 

 be their labour. Clipping, however, would only be necessary occasionally ; for, 

 wherever the grave mounds are neatly formed and smooth on the surface, 

 they may always be mown with the scythe, which is much better than cropping 

 with the reaping-hook, the mouth of the operator in the former case being 

 so much farther from the soil and its exhalations. 



In some churchyards sheep are admitted with a view to crop the grass, 

 which they do effectually when in sufficient numbers, and when aided by the 

 spud to eradicate broad-leaved coarse-looking plants which sheep will not eat ; 

 but, as in the case of sheep being admitted into churchyards, it is impossible 

 for any person to ornament a grave with shrubs or flowers, and, as the 

 poor have frequently no other means of showing their respect for the dead, 

 we would prohibit the introduction of sheep into churchyards except where 

 a portion of the ground had not been buried in, and that portion we would 

 separate from the rest by a fence of wire hurdles, and keep it short by sheep 

 to save the expense of mowing. 



Desecration, — Not only sheep, but cows, horses, and swine, are admitted to 

 graze the churchyards in some places ; and, in the intellectual town of Had- 

 dington, the minister of the cathedral burial-ground not only allowed his 

 sheep to graze in the churchyard, but carted in turnips to them there, and 

 fattened them for the butcher. In many parts of the country, particularly in 

 Scotland, the boundary fences of churchyards are in such a state that swine 

 and dogs have free access to them, and the former are allowed to tear up the 

 grave mounds, and even to burrow into the graves. Where houses are built 

 on the margins of churchyards, as they frequently are in small country towns*, 

 the waste water and other refuse from the house are thrown from the windows 

 among the graves ; and, shocking as it may be to relate, in some parts of 



* The churchyard of Carlow is in the centre of the town, and so closely 

 surrounded by tenements, that in some places the wall of the dwelling-house, 

 often loosely built, alone divides the bed of the occupant from the (perhaps 

 newly tenanted) grave ; this, although rendering the air sufficiently insalu- 

 brious, is not the only cause of impurity, as the annual decay of noxious 

 plants, luxuriant in a place so rank and untrodden as our graveyards, uni- 

 versally neglected, are, where vegetable decomposition above ground is as 

 much a consequence as animal decay beneath, injures most seriously the 

 surrounding atmosphere. {Health of Towns, p. 197.) 



