June 29, 1892.] 



Garden and Forest. 



301 



GARDEN AND FOREST, 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Offick: TKibUNtt Building, New Yoric. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



KNIERBD AS SBCOND-CLASS MATTER AT THtt POST OFFICB AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 1892. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACB. 



Editorial Articles : — Restful Burial Grounds 301 



PreteHclers in Landscape-art 302 



A Corner in Pines Mrs. J. H. Rohbins. 302 



The Great Elm at Derby Line. (With figure.) T. H. Hoslcins, M.D. 303 



Plant Notes : — Some Recent Portraits 303 



New ok Littlk-known Plants : — Hypericum opacum. {With figure.). ..C 5. S. 304 



Foreign Correspondence: — Knap Hill Nursery Visitor. 304 



Cultural Department: — Iron-clad Stocks — The Graft-bo.\ Fungus, 



T. H. Haskins, M.D. 306 



Choice Herbaceous Plants Kobert Cameron. 307 



Fern Notes ]V. H. Taflin. 308 



Narcissus poeticus G. H. Englcheari. 308 



Correspondence: — Impressions of America. — II Cealia Wacrn. 309 



Is Spravinj^ Overdone ? Professor L. H. Bailey. 310 



A Good' Example J. N. G. 310 



Periodical Literature 311 



. Rrcent Publications 311 



Notes 312 



Illustrations : — Hypericum opacum. Fig. 54 305 



The Great Elm at Derby Line, Vermont, Fig. 55 307 



Restful Burial Grounds. 



TWO articles published recently in the:>e columns call 

 attention to the charm of burial grounds where the 

 attention is not distracted by decorations inappropriate to 

 the scene, and the writer commends the Walnut Hills 

 Cemetery, in Brookline, Massachusetts, and the Quaker 

 burial grounds for their absence of showy adornment and 

 monumental display. 



We have already stated that it is the effort of superin- 

 tendents and trustees of burial grounds to so dispose them 

 that there may be a certain unity of design in their arrange- 

 ment, and to make the parts subordinate to an agreeable 

 whole ; but there is a difficulty in reconciling the pub- 

 lic to any interference with what seems an individual 

 privilege, and it is hard to make people realize that what is 

 of great significance to them may be a fatal blot in the 

 whole picture as it presents itself to the general eye. But 

 the education of taste goes on imperceptibly; given the 

 canon, and in time it will commend itself to all ; though 

 the general instinct now is that every one has a right to 

 express his sense of loss and his recognition of the value of 

 the departed in such fashion as may seem to him appro- 

 priate. But, as in crowded grave-yards, the lack of beauty 

 becomes more apparent as the work of the stone-cutter 

 overpowers the work of nature, and this shows that some- 

 where a halt must be cried to personal fancy, and an en- 

 deavor made to introduce permanent beauty. 



Those who remember the great cemeteries near our 

 larger cities as they were fifty years ago, when their fine 

 natural advantages of hill and dale, of wide outlook, or 

 shadowy recess, were only here and there interrupted by 

 grave-stones, and contrast them with their present aspect 

 of closely crowded iron and marble, must regret that some 

 controlling taste did not long ago intervene to preserve all 

 that beauty by insisting upon monuments so small and 

 unobtrusive that the trees and natural loveliness of glade 



and elevation would still be the most apparent features of 

 the spot rather than painful rows of glaring marble, often 

 violent in design and imperfect in execution, or masses of 

 flowers and colored leaves that are more curious than 

 beautiful and appropriate. To this degree of taste people 

 must be educated, and their expression of ornament con- 

 trolled until they arrive themselves at the point where their 

 own understanding commends a chaste and simple record 

 of the departed in lieu of striking monument or elal)orate 

 inscription. What men like is a sure test of their aesthetic 

 development and refinement, but even the artistic sense is 

 the result of long and careful training and of constantly 

 reiterated precept and of carefully studied example. 



Since a cemetery must of necessity be conventional, as 

 few monuments or grave-stones depart from some well- 

 known and often repeated pattern, it seems right that 

 such conventionality should be subordinate to a general 

 plan which should combine all detail in one fair and noble 

 conception of satisfying and restful beauty ; so that a 

 burial ground ought to be endeared to us, not only by the 

 memory of those who sleep there, but by the grand groups 

 of trees, the well-considered arrangements of shrubs and 

 flowers appropriate to the scene, which would give to the 

 whole ground a dignity and impressiveness forever to be 

 associated in men's minds with those they have loved and 

 lost. With the consciousness that years will increase and 

 not detract from the beauty of the hallowed spot, affec- 

 tionate thoughts can cluster around that serene resting- 

 place, and draw us thither more and more willingly. For 

 such a result canons of taste are imperatively necessary, 

 and a few simple ones at least may be laid down for the 

 guidance of those who earnestly desire to know what is 

 truly befitting for so dear a spot. 



In the first place it is admitted that no visible boundaries 

 should be permitted between the lots, neither fences, nor 

 hedges, nor copings of stone or marble, nor should the 

 place where the dead lie be indicated by a mound. 



A simple and artistic stone, ample enough for such in- 

 scription as is required, should be provided ; but no tall 

 conspicuous monument nor massive sarcophagus should 

 be admitted, and it would be well if marble should be 

 wholly excluded, as its keen whiteness is a constant shock 

 to the eye, and always fails to blend harmoniously with 

 surrounding verdure. Such shrubs and flowers as would 

 be grouped here ought to be so disposed as to conduce to 

 unity and breadth of effect. No individual desire to plant 

 a rose-bush here, a willow there, should be permitted to in- 

 terfere with a design which is not for the one but for the 

 many, an effort to create one large and lovely dwelling 

 for the dead, rather than a series of unlovely patches un- 

 related in design and ruinous to the general beauty of the 

 scene by their lack of harmony with one another. It was this 

 character of unobtrusiveness that inspired Gray's Elegy. 

 The quiet graves where " the rude forefathers of the ham- 

 let sleep" are destitute of stately monument. We can see the 

 gray church with its clustering sunken stones about it to- 

 day and realize the tranquil charm of that peaceful old 

 churchyard, which needs no shining cenotaph nor glowing 

 beds of flowers to make it live forever in our memory. 



Restfulness and peace. What else do we need in our 

 last home .? Shall not the fresh flowers strewn by some 

 loving hand upon our lowly couch be the best token we 

 are unforgotten .? Why, then, should our final sleeping- 

 place be pranked out with marble and gaud}'' show of 

 blossom.? Rather let some quiet graj' stone indicate our 

 resting-place, and evergreen ivy drape it with its sombre 

 leaflets, while over all may arch the boughs of an- 

 cient trees that shall bestrew it in spring with blossoms, 

 and in autumn with the soft covering of its falling leaves. 

 The reason for simplicity in burial places is obvious. It is 

 not here that the memory of the wise and good is to be 

 preserved. That lives in the minds of men. Here lies the 

 common dust of which we all are made, and to which we 

 are to return. Death, the great leveler, here makes an end 

 of our pretences ; before the Destroyer all arealike. Let, 



