10 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



With regard to the permanent work in our cemeteries, it is 

 necessary in the first place to protect them so that their sites shall 

 not be obliterated in course of time, and to this end it is intended, 

 wherever possible, to enclose them with a wall. Either within or 

 without the wall a hedge of Thorn, Beech, Hornbeam,Yew, or Holly may 

 be required, or a screen of pleached and trained Limes or Hornbeams 

 to surround the cemetery — similar to those so often seen in France — 

 may form a feature of the design. Within the cemetery itself, it is 

 intended to rely mainly on the peaceful effect of a smooth grass lawn 

 with each grave marked by its headstone, and to plant avenues and 

 groups of suitable trees or shrubs. 



In many places a small rose bush or other dwarf shrub has been 

 planted on each grave, but as these cannot be expected to live for 

 many years, it will be far more effective to aim at establishing 

 eventually an even and unbroken surface of turf. 



Before grass can be sown, much work will have to be done in 

 producing a levelled surface by lowering the unsightly mounds of 

 earth over the individual graves and by erasing the innumerable 

 narrow pathways. In trench cemeteries the trench mounds are being 

 similarly lowered and the narrower paths are being filled in in order 

 to prepare a smooth surface for the grass seed. 



A grass lawn which can be rolled and mown presents no special 

 difficulties for permanent maintenance, but the keeping neat of a 

 large number of small grass plots, which would have to be cut by hand, 

 affords a problem beset with so many difficulties, especially when 

 the number of the cemeteries is taken into consideration, that it 

 must be put aside as impracticable. 



Now that the work of permanent planting has become possible 

 it has been found necessary to establish nurseries for the reception 

 and propagation of the trees and shrubs destined for cemeteries. 

 The plants have been or are being obtained from several well- 

 known French and English nurserymen, *and are set out immediately 

 on arrival in one or other of the nurseries, there to wait until they 

 are required for the places for which they were ordered. The first 

 consignments, four in number, were received in the autumn of 1917 

 and each nursery was supplied by a different firm in order to obviate 

 any confusion. 



It was hoped that as the destinations were far apart and the firms 

 distinct, the consignments would arrive at reasonable intervals. As 

 it happened, however, three of them arrived at almost the same time, 

 and to give you an idea of the work this entailed in war time I cannot 

 do better than quote a portion of a letter I received from one of our 

 horticultural officers in France telling me of the arrival of these 56,000 

 plants, which were unloaded and planted or heeled-in in six days. 



" Things have indeed moved during the past week. 



" On Monday last I started for M and called at the R.T.O.'s 



office to inquire if anything had come, and found it had. 



" I went to the S.M.T.O. and asked for transport and he placed 



