May i8, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



231 



not reach more than half around the trunks. Otlicr speci- 

 mens of this tree, all of about the same size, are to be found 

 in Norway. 



Pinus Jeffreyii has not been tried in Norway except in the 

 botanic garden at Christiana, where there is a specimen fifteen 

 years old and six and a half feet high. In Sweden tliis species 

 is hardy in the south, as it is at Stockholm and at St. Peters- 

 burg;. P. ponderosa is hardy in Sweden at Alwarp and at 

 Gathenl.iourg. P. cembra grows well in southern Sweden, 

 and in the vicinity of Stockholm increases in height at the rate 

 of more than a foot a year. P. Laricio Austriaca is occasion- 

 ally planted in Norway in tlie neighborhood of Christiana and 

 occasionally as far north as 68° 12" nordi, where for a number 

 of years it has proved hardy. The largest specimen I have seen 

 in Norway stands in the botanic gardens at Christiana. It was 

 planted in 1842 when it was a foot high ; it is now thirty-eight 

 feet high, with a trunk four feet in circumference. It has also 

 proved hardy in the neighborhood of Stockholm and in Finland. 



Quaker Burial Grounds. 



THE final resting-places of the Society of Friends show the 

 same severe and simple taste which characterizes their 

 homes and ways. Repose and quiet are the keynotes of their 

 well-ordered lives, and restfulness pervades the unadorned 

 grounds where the plain people sleep their last sleep. The 

 original custom was to have no stone to mark the grave of a 

 member of the Society ; aud not even a mound to indicate the 

 spot where a dead Friend was laid. Records of locality were, 

 however, kept by the meeting, so that a man could know just 

 vi'here his family was interred. 



There are some old burying-grounds in Pennsylvania where 

 there was formerly only a plain stretch of greensward with a 

 few trees, but for the last fifty years the custom of putting 

 small stones to mark the burial spot has prevailed. In a very 

 old ground at Abington, Pennsylvania, I found no stone earlier 

 than 1840, showing that before that time they were not used, 

 while rows upon rows of mounds, unmarked, showed where 

 the earlier forefathers of the hamlet lie unchronicled. In an- 

 other old grave-yard in Philadelphia itself, at Seventeenth and 

 Cherry Streets, there are but few stones, and scarcely any signs 

 of graves. Groups of trees and shrubs shade the enclosure, 

 and the grass is green in this ancient spot, and dotted with 

 small wild flowers. Around it circle brick walls of buildings, 

 but the yard itself, which occupies a city square, is verdant and 

 secluded. Many of the dead have been removed from this 

 spot to larger suburban cemeteries, but some sunken stones 

 still show where others lie undisturbed, and the turf is grow- 

 ing over many an unindicated grave. 



The stones themselves in this, as in the other grounds I vis- 

 ited, are about eighteen inches wide, and but six or eight 

 inches high. Upon the sides, sometimes upon the narrow 

 upper edge of the stone, are chiseled the name of the de- 

 ceased and the day and year of birth and death. On one stone 

 only, among all that I saw, was there any other inscription, 

 and that was a pathetic line from a heart-broken wife. On one 

 other modern stone was the tiny reclining figure of a boy read- 

 ing, the memorial of a deeply mourned son ; but these were 

 the only departures I observed from the plain severity of the 

 rule. 



There is a dignity in this quiet and unostentatious treatment 

 of the dead which appeals to the mind as worthy and befitting. 

 No "storied urn and animated bust" here records the fame 

 and glory of the sleeper. Dust they are, and unto dust they 

 return, and their little lives leave no haughty record of achieve- 

 ment. Peaceful are these old grounds, with their formal lines 

 of trees, their unobtrusive stones, their stretches of green 

 grass, and the quiet old meeting-houses standing beside them. 

 The Abington meeting-house is situated in a fine grove of 

 Oaks and Maples, somewhat disfigured by the unsightly sheds 

 that serve to shelter the carriages of the worshipers, and 

 through this we pass into the stiff enclosure behind the build- 

 ing, where the dead Friends are laid under the branches of 

 spreading trees in silent array. Beyond the highway rise the 

 great woods of Alverthorp, which add to the seclusion of this 

 retreat from the world. 



Another day I strolled up the quaint main street of German- 

 town, bordered with venerable houses, and found my way to 

 the old ground that lies behind and around the orthodox 

 Friends' meeting-house. Here are more overshadowing trees, 

 and some of the graves are overgrown with English Ivy that 

 has straggled from the wall and covered them with a dark 

 green drapery, that must be put aside to read the names upon 

 the gray and blackened marble. Wild flowers bloom here un- 

 molested amid the turf, starring it with timid color. It was 



the close of the Fourth Day Meeting, and groups of men in 

 broad-brimmed hats, and of women in close gray bonnets, were 

 emerging from the old stone building and softly wending their 

 way homeward, with friendly hand-shaking and quiet words 

 to each other. The girls and boys of the Friends' school were 

 playing gayly in the sunshine, unchecked by tlie neighborhood 

 of the ilead. New houses stand unseparated, even by a fence 

 or wall, from the burial ground, so that their groups of trees 

 seem to form a part of it. As I came back I looked in at the 

 windows of the old place of worship, where I have often sat 

 in former days, and saw it still the same. The whitewashed 

 walls, the rows of unpainted benches with gray cushions, the 

 raised gallery for the preachers and elders of the meeting, the 

 well-known air of cleanliness and quiet, of silence and recol- 

 lection—all as of yore. The breeze was soft and spring-like, 

 the birds caroled in the overhanging branches, the voices of 

 children rang in the air, the dead slept peacefully outside, and 

 I thought with tenderness of those beside whom I had sat in 

 this venerable sanctuary who now lie beneath the sod, while 

 their hallowed memory lives with a younger generation, per- 

 haps straying from the simple and austere faith which, having 

 fulfilled its mission, by preaching equality and liberty and the 

 soul's direct communion with its Maker, is passing away from 

 among us— the more's the pity, since the noble lessons of self- 

 restraint, of order, of tranquillity of mind, of patience and 

 simplicity, which its believers preached in word and life 

 can never be outworn. The trouble is that it is a religion for 

 the saint rather than the sinner, and demands the elect rather 

 than the rank and file of struggling humanity for its members, 

 and hence is little suited to a roystenng world that desires 

 praise, and noise, and glory, and a flaring record of life upon 

 its tombstones. 



As I passed, on my return, a modern cemetery crowded 

 with monuments of unequal heights, with shafts and obelisks, 

 and cenotaphs and sarcophagi in dire confusion, the ground 

 splotched with gaudy flower-beds and blazing with color, I 

 thought how much nearer to beauty was the idea of the So- 

 ciety of Friends, to whom a burial ground was a solemn les- 

 son, not a spot for showy adornment, whether of marble or of 

 herbage, but one where repose and silence should prevail, 

 and no temptation to idle curiosity mar the serious scene. 



Surely in the home of the dead there should be quiet and 

 restfulness, rather than hubbub of color and violence of form, 

 and we may well learn a lesson in taste from those who, be- 

 lieving in an unchanging fashion, mark the spot where lie 

 the remains of those they love with the simplest record, the 

 most unobtrusive head-stones, and write an epitaph only in 

 their own faithful hearts. 



Hingham, Mass. M. C. Bobbins. 



Notes of a Summer Journey in Europe. — XV. 



A FTER a week spent in the Jardin des Plantes its treasures 

 •^^~*- can hardly be said to be more than glanced over, but 

 where one has only two weeks to devote to the botanical and 

 horticultural places of interest in and about Paris it is well to 

 give some of the time to an examination of collections and in- 

 sfitutions outside of the Museum. Among many others, the park 

 of the Petit Trianon, the favorite garden of l\iarie Antoinette, 

 is likely to prove satisfactory to the admirer of fine trees 

 and natural beauty. Many of the botanical treasures collected 

 by the elder Michaux in North America were first brought here 

 to enrich the Queen's garden. The gardens of Versailles, as a 

 whole, maybe more interestingtomany persons than this little 

 corner of it, but the formality of the great gardens of the 

 palace, masterpieces as they are called, proved tedious and 

 uninteresting to me. This is or was, beyond question, a great 

 work, and withal an enormously expensive one, a work which 

 probably contributed its small share in bringing about the 

 Revolution. In its imperial days, too, when maintained in 

 immaculate order, it no doubt seemed a very paradise to its 

 frequenters. But, apart from its present partial neglect, how 

 dreary and monotonous the gardens, formally clipped trees 

 and straight-cut vistas seem to-day. The dry fountains, 

 straight-edged canals, the geometrical figures and similar ar- 

 rangements are a weariness to the eye, and one's sympathy 

 goes out to the lines of trees, seen everywhere in the vicinity 

 of the palaces, which, we are told, are cut and clipped in order 

 to harmonize with the style of architecture of the buildings. 

 Little wonder that Marie Antoinette preferred her " English 

 garden," as she called it, and the park of the Petit Trianon for 

 an occasional secluded retreat. 



In the immediate vicinity of the little palace or chateau, on 

 the side adjoining the Grand Trianon, the French or formal 

 style of gardening prevails, and it is behind this that we find 



