242 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 222. 



them as to unselfish benefactors. What we wish to do now, 

 however, is to call attention to another illustration of this 

 truth which has been sugg-esled by the published report of 

 the Proceedings of the Convenlioii of /he Associa/io?! of 

 American Cemetery Superintendents, which was held last 

 autumn in Chicago. 



To some eyes there may seem no hint of artistic things 

 or questions in this title. But our readers are aware that 

 we consider the right treatment of the rural cemetery, an 

 institution which is almost peculiar to America, rests on 

 important and interesting artistic principles. And yet it is 

 evident from this report that the greatest obstacle in the 

 way of such treatment is the persistent bad taste of the 

 public. We might suppose that our cemeteries are not 

 more beautiful because it is hard to find people to make 

 them beautiful. But the case is really the reverse of this. 

 Many at least among the persons who are employed to 

 care for them know what aspect they ought to wear, and 

 are eager to give them this aspect ; but their employers 

 bar the path. If the bad taste of the committee or trustees 

 who control a cemetery is not to blame, then it is usually 

 the bad taste of the majority of individual lot-owners. 



Of course, we should not assert this simply on such 

 statements as that " the superintendents of cemeteries have 

 to bear with many things that they do not like in catering 

 to the public." If no explanations with regard to points of 

 difference were given, we might conclude that the super- 

 intendents rather than their patrons need an education in 

 good taste. But the various addresses given at length in 

 this report bear such clear witness to the correctness of the 

 views of prominent cemetery superintendents, and to the 

 conflicting views of their patrons, that one cannot help 

 feeling confident as to the source from which improvement 

 may be expected. 



For example, Mr. G. H. Scott, of Rose Hill Cemetery, 

 Chicago, in discussing how large a part nature should play 

 in the cemetery, said: "What maybe considered natural 

 in a cemetery .? In the first place, grass and trees. There 

 should be an abundance of grass and a sufficiency of trees 

 and shrubs, with as few pathways as possible and no more 

 driveways than are absolutely necessary. A cemetery-lot 

 with mounds or graves not higher than three inches above 

 grade of plain sod, well clipped and trimmed, gives that 

 appearance of neatness, simplicity, quiet and beauty which 

 every such lot should have. The prevailing anxiety on the 

 part of lot-owners to surpass each other in the erection of 

 costly monuments, vaults and stone-work generally, is 

 detrimental to the natural appearance of a cemetery. An- 

 other encroachment upon the natural appearance of a ceme- 

 tery is carpet-bedding. To take the natural and well- 

 trimmed sod from a grave and cover it with a carpet-bedding 

 of plants and flowers, giving it the appearance of a patch- 

 work crazy-quilt, is, to say the least, absurd, and certainly 

 rot in keeping with the natural appearance of a cemetery 

 representing the peaceful resting-place of the dead. Not 

 so with plants of wild flowers and hardy herbaceous per- 

 ennials. They are things of nature. This class of plants 

 are inexpensive, will live over winter, flourish without 

 care, become larger in size and increase in beauty every 

 year, and should be dispersed over the ground so as to give 

 them a natural appearance. A cemetery should be a place 

 for meditation, a place where the living, pleased and satis- 

 fied with its natural appearance of peace and quiet, and 

 free from the busy hum of human toil and artistic dazzle, 

 may anticipate the time vs'hen they, too, must succumb to 

 the inevitable, not mournfully, but cheerfull)''. Besides, if 

 cemeteries generally were kept more natural in appearance, 

 their cost of maintenance would be less." 



We have taken these sentences out of their context and 

 massed them so as to show, as briefl}' as possible, Mr. 

 Scott's idea of what the treatment of a rural burial ground 

 should be. And from the speech of Mr. Higgins, of Wood- 

 mere Cemetery, Detroit, we may take a few more sentences 

 with a similar purpose. "What," he asks, " are the essen- 

 tials of a perfect cemetery .? Beauty and harmony. Har- 



mony, as I here use it, should not be considered as flatness 

 or want of variety, but as a lack of elements of discord 

 which it is difficult to overcome. Thus a small Niagara 

 would not be desirable in the proposed site for a burying- 

 ground, neither beetling cliffs nor wild gorges. Pic- 

 turesqueness may occasionally be properly sought after in 

 the improvement of parks or private grounds, but is scarcely 

 productive of that air of quiet repose which should be one 

 of the main characteristics of the last resting-place of man. 

 . . . The two crying evils of all cemeteries are our present 

 great ugly headstones and our unsightly grave-mounds. 

 It seems to me, however, that in some cemeteries which 

 are working toward the lawn-plan, they lay too much 

 stress on prettiness and bring with it the puerilities, polish 

 and showiness of highly kept front yards or showy lawns, 

 and that too much money is expended in ornamentation 

 and display. Now, neatness is one thing, display an en- 

 tirely different thing. I believe that the nearer we keep to 

 nature in our methods of cemeter)^ improvement, the bet- 

 ter results we shall obtain and the more economical will 

 be our management of aftairs. We must bear in mind that 

 cemeteries are designed for burying-places for the poor as 

 well as for the rich, and that extravagance in ornamenta- 

 tion or wasteful methods of care defeat the very purpose 

 for which they vs'ere intended." 



Surely these ideas are sound. They are the truly artistic 

 because the truly fitting principles in accordance with 

 which rural burial grounds should be designed and main- 

 tained. It is pleasant to know that persons holding execu- 

 tive positions in our cemeteries entertain such ideas, and 

 we should be glad to know that they were less frequently 

 hindered from acting upon them by their employers. 



The Cork Oak. 



A SUBSCRIBER in California has asked us for informa- 

 tion with regard to the cultivation of the Cork Oak, 

 and being unable to find anything satisfactory on the sub- 

 ject published in works of European silviculture, we ad- 

 dressed the question to our learned correspondent. Monsieur 

 Charles Naudin, of Antibes, in France, who sends us the 

 following reph' : 



Th.eCorkOak, like the Chestnut, is only found on sandy soil, and 

 grows in forests in Provence, in Roussillon, Corsica and Algeria. 

 It is not cultivated, althougli owners of sandy soil sometimes 

 sow the acorns on ground trom which forests of this tree have 

 been removed, but their operations are confined to planting 

 the acorns, and nothing is done to the trees until they are old 

 enough to produce a crop of bark. It is believed, however, 

 tliat it will be a profitable operation to pay some attention to 

 the young plantations, especially to clear them of other trees 

 and shrubs and to prune the trees in order to hasten the de- 

 velopment of their trunks. It is customary to find Cork Oaks 

 mixed wifii other trees — Pines, Ilex, Chestnuts, etc. 



From the classical Ouercus sober the botanist Jacques Gay 

 separated as a distinct species, under the name of 0. occi- 

 dentalis, a variety with very thick corky bark peculiar to 

 south-western France outside of the Mediterranean basin, 

 which he distinguished from the ancient O. suber by the bien- 

 nial ripening of the acorns, but this character is so little con- 

 stant that botanists have not considered this form specifically 

 distinct, although, and this is worth noting, it is much hardier 

 than the Mediterranean form. Fifty or sixty years ago, Mon- 

 sieur Trochu, father of the General of that name, made planta- 

 tions of the two Cork Oaks on Belle Isle, on the coast of Brit- 

 tany, in an oceanic climate. The Oak of the south-west flour- 

 ished here while those from the shores of the Mediterranean 

 all perished. This seems to indicate a specific difference, or 

 at least a physiological difference. I do not doubt that the 

 Mediterranean Cork Oak will succeed in California if it is 

 planted in sandy soil ; at any rate, it would be interesting" to 

 try there the two species, orthe two varieties, in order to judge 

 by comparison which is the more valuable. 



Speaking of Oaks, an old forest-officer. Monsieur Bouguet 

 de la Grye, tells me that O. Banisteri (O. illicifolia) of the south- 

 ern United States produces great quantities of acorns. If it 

 really possesses this quality it should be introduced into 

 Algiers, where the acorns would serve as food for pigs. 



