PARK AND CEMETERY. 
■i3-2 
glowing crimson. He also cultivates 
the royal Victoria, the gigantic eur- 
yale, and a great assortment of appro- 
priate marginal plants, and luxuriant 
tropical grouping subjects, and these 
are enlivened by a gorgeous display 
of cannas, hibiscus and the like. 
But he has discontinued growing 
nelumbiums. They need deeper water 
than the nymphjeas; they spread too 
much and they become so disfigured 
by stem or leaf borers as often to be 
unsightly. They need a water to 
themselves. But my neighbor, Mr. 
Henry H. Negley, a wide traveler and 
keen sportsman, finds utility even in 
these borer pests, he tells me the boys 
in Florida cut the grubs out of the 
leaf stalks of nelumbium luteum and 
use them as bait for fishing. 
Now here is a garden to linger over 
and study. In most of our cefneteries 
we have lakes or streamlets and it be- 
hooves us to make them as decora- 
tive and pretty as we can consistently 
and appropriately. But never lose 
sight of the fact that a lake is like 
a lawn, in the latter the broad expanse 
of unbroken grass is its most charm- 
ing feature, the same with the lake, 
the clear unbroken spread of water it- 
self is the great aim to consider. In 
the marginal settings and effects and 
contiguous plantings we have ample 
scope for furnishment and decorative 
schemes. 
Although it was Sunday and Shaw’s 
Gardens were closed to the public, the 
Supt., Prof. Irish, specially invited 
and welcomed us and spent some 
hours with us explaining and showing 
to us the thousands of kinds of plants, 
indoors and out, grown in this vast 
emporium. Oh, how delightful it was 
to again come face to face with plants 
— common associates of long ago — 
that I had not seen for many a day 
or year, and to refresh the memory, 
and also to meet plants that were new 
to me. Our education is never com- 
plete. But confound those botanists. 
Here are dozens of old plants under 
new names, generically and specifical- 
Ij'. How can a plain practical man 
ever keep pace with the technical re- 
searches of those scientists? 
Arising from Gurney’s groaning 
table, his son our guide, we hied to 
friend Brazill at Calvary Cemetery 
some miles away. That Celtic Solo- 
mon awaited us in radiant glory and 
with him was liis boon companion, 
John Reid, of Detroit. Brazill has a 
fine cemetery 430 acres, and 91,000 
peaceful occupants, and he is adding 
to this host over 3,000 a year of his 
fellow citizens. And still he was dis- 
satisfied and growling about hard 
times ; he was not now, on an aver- 
age, burying more than 8 a day! Bra- 
zill has a fine reputation in St. Louis. 
He is an eminent civil engineer and 
excels in construction work. He aims 
at landscape art and tree grouping, 
too, but gives the credit for his pro- 
ficiency in this direction to his pre- 
ceptor, Reid. And a capital teacher 
he has; we all remember with pride 
the magnificent work of John Reid in 
his nerv cemetery at Detroit. Brazill 
has a fondness for the box elder, but 
I haven’t, so he got cross with me 
and he failed to see any good in the 
Scotch pine, it was too scraggy; the 
Austrian is his favorite, and the Mug- 
hiO he uses extensively in marginal 
and corner grouping. 
Echoes of the Convention 
Great is Kansas City! 
Didn’t w'e have the splendid con- 
vention? 
You men who could have gone but 
didn’t are to be pitied, you missed it 
in brotherly love and helpful business 
information. You who wanted to go 
but were unavoidably prevented have 
our sympathy. 
But w'e heard of somebody who 
knows so much already that going to 
the convention couldn’t benefit him 
any! Poor fellow. Don’t for a mom- 
ent think that you know everything, 
because you don't ; and don’t for a 
second imagine that you couldn’t 
learn something beneficial to yourself 
and your cemetery at the convention, 
for you could. When you rub up 
against such men as Diering, Currie, 
Painter, Hobert, Miller and Ross, 
don’t think that the brains are all 
under j^our hat, for they aren’t. 
Kansas City itself w^as a delightful 
surprise. Its proportions, area, busi- 
ness and building activity, multitudi- 
nous and lovely homes, great park 
acreage, vast boulevard mileage, beau- 
tiful cemeteries, superb tree growth 
and hospitable people, were a revela- 
tion to me, and to thee. And then its 
oiled roads — city boulevards, and coun- 
ty highways, were an indelible lesson. 
Many of us had been nibbling and 
guessing at these for years, but here 
they were broadcast before us and 
everywhere, made and' in process of 
construction, and their utility cannot 
be gainsaid. 
Many new faces appeared among us 
and they took earnest and active part 
in the meetings, and most welcome 
tliey were. Friend Crosbie and other 
veteran members have not got it all 
their own way. Vigorous and irre- 
pressible young men, Gaudin and 
Jensen, for example, have become a 
force in the Association. Still the 
frosty brows of Boice, Cline, Craig, 
Eurich and others stand aloft in hon- 
or and experience — leaders and teach- 
ers. 
But among the older members there 
was a tinge of sadness — something 
missing. It was the wholesome joy- 
ousness of dear old brother Stone, the 
genial word and smile of the gentle 
and beloved David Woods, the mod- 
est and interested bearing of JoJm 
Bo.xell, and others who had gone be- 
yond. Still we were a mirthful peo- 
ple. The ringing laugh as our Nestor 
of Geneseo related his experiences of 
half a century ago was contageous ; a 
look, let alone a word from the Sage 
of Salem melted the gloomiest face 
into the happiest grin, and so it went. 
What a little world this planet is 
to a man who would want to hide in 
it. Aside from the cemetery people 
I did not think that I knew a living 
soul in Kansas City, still on the sec- 
ond day of the convention, Murray, 
the florist, sent for me. He had known 
me for 35 years and his associate. 
Air. Thompson, 20 years. Great was 
their hospitality. And thus it was 
that Craig, Currie and myself did not 
reach the Forest Hills meeting until 
brother Gaudin was expounding his 
.39thly. In a fast and furious “red 
devil” friend Alurray bore us hither 
and thither from one village of glass 
'to another, for it was meet that we 
sh'd see and know how flowers were 
grown in the West as well as how 
people were buried there. 
Oh, how I envied the good soil of 
the country and the luxuriant and 
healthful arboreal growth and the 
generous variety of indegenous trees. 
Climatic and industrial conditions 
avail them. Here in dear old smoky 
Pittsburg, a cloud of smoke by day 
and a valley of fire by night, the sul- 
phurous breatli of the blast furnaces 
and coke ovens are murder to our 
trees, and the land is desolate. But 
with new plantings and shrubberies 
we are trying to make amends for the 
giants that are dead or dying and the 
lesser growth that is shrivelling on the 
stump. 
What a blessing these conventions 
are! What an excellent antidote for 
the swelled head. Stay at home and 
get puffed up in our own importance. 
Go out and find that otljer people not 
only know as much as we do, but oft- 
entimes a mighty sight more, and he 
is an obtuse wretch indeed who can- 
not sec something suggestive to his 
( Continued on page A) 
