AMERICAN MASTERPIECES 



works of Olmsted. The technical ideas 

 which have prevailed are the same. While 

 Mr. O. C. Simonds has always been a 

 highly independent worker, and while his 

 ideas have been developed largely by him- 

 self, he has still been influenced to a con- 

 siderable extent by the work of the elder 

 Olmsted. Nevertheless, Graceland Ceme- 

 tery is peculiarly his own enterprise. In 

 its present form, he may be said to have 

 established it. He not only designed but 

 constructed it. There is hardly a piece of 

 work to be found anywhere in the United 

 States which is more directly and com- 

 pletely the personal product of one man's 

 labors. 



Graceland Cemetery presented a num- 

 ber of technical difficulties. The chief of 

 these was the low, fiat, swampy land on 

 which it was built, and which was totally 

 unadapted, in its original state, to the pur- 

 poses for which it was set apart. There 

 was very little natural growth of trees or 

 shrubbery on the ground, and the climate 

 was unfavorable to such growth. These 

 difficulties stood largely in the way of suc- 

 cess in the natural style of gardening, the 

 style adopted for Graceland. 



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