PARK AND CEMETERY 
and LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
ALLIED ARTS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 536 SOUTH CLARK STREET. CHICAGO 
R. J. HAIGHT, Presiflent H. C. WHITAKER, Vice-President and General Manager O. H. SAMPLE, Secretary-Treasurer 
SUBSCRIPTION TERMS: United States and Possessions, Mexico and Cuba, one year, $2 00; two years, $3 50: three years. $5.00; five years, $8.00. Canada and other countries, 
$2.50 a year. Single copies, 25 cents. Published on the fifteenth of the month. Copy for advertisements and reading matter should reach us by the First of the month. 
VOL. XXVII NO. 2 
APRIL, 1917 
EDITORIAL 
CEMETERY MAINTENANCE 
An inquiry regarding the right of a 
cemetery association of lot owners to 
levy assessments on lots for the main- 
tenance of roads, paths, fences, and 
other general portions of the cemetery, 
answered on another page, points a 
moral in cemetery management that is 
obvious and that should be carefully 
heeded. The gist of legal opinion seems 
to be that unless some specific statute of 
the state or a definite provision in the 
lot owner’s contract authorizes such an 
assessment, it cannot be made. It is 
ordinarily understood that the improve- 
ments common to the cemetery as a 
whole, and those portions of the cem- 
etery such as ornamental sections, roads 
and drives, for the use of the general 
public and all lot owners, are to be 
maintained out of the general revenues 
of the association. The general funds 
of the association should be sufficient to 
provide for this and in all modern, well 
managed cemeteries this general main- 
tenance is of course given to the grounds 
without additional charge to the lot 
owners. A cemetery is established on a 
poor financial basis, indeed, when it is 
not able to maintain the roads and 
walks without assessing the lot owners. 
Even where a cemetery is managed by 
an association of lot owners without 
profit, it should be self-supporting finan- 
cially, and operated on sound business 
principles. In most states adequate au- 
thority will be found for requiring a lot 
holder to keep his own lot in such condi- 
tion that it will not mar the general 
appearance of the grounds or interfere 
with the rights of other lot owners. But 
the lot owner should not be expected to 
assume liability for the up-keep of parts 
of the grounds used for common benefit. 
It is the duty of every cemetery to see 
that revenues from lot sales are suffi- 
cient to give adequate general mainten- 
ance to the grounds and administration 
buildings, and the lot owner has a right 
to expect that the price he pays for a 
lot covers this general service. 
THE CEMETERY PLANNER 
The development of cemeteries as 
business enterprises has progressed so 
rapidly within the past few years as to 
show th.e need for a thorough study in 
efficiency in every phase of cemetery 
management. A cemetery operated for 
profit must be managed just as sincerely 
for the best interests of the lot holders 
as one that is owned by the lot holders 
and operated without profit. In fact on 
no other basis can a privately owned 
cemetery be a success. Many business 
men are entering upon the development 
of cem.eteries wholly without experience 
and training and without the realization 
that operating a cemetery is a highly 
specialized and technical work. No cem- 
etery company should think of organiz- 
ing without an expert plan and report, 
and expert service is just as much 
needed in determining the price of lots, 
the rules and regulations to be observed 
and the financial and accounting prob- 
lems as it is in the landscape plan and 
improvement of the grounds. The cem- 
etery planner works as carefully and 
studies his problem as thoroughly as the 
city planner, and efficient cemetery de- 
velopment is not possible without the 
proper expert and technical advice. How 
little this fact is recognized is illustrated 
in inquiries that come frequently to 
Park and Cemetery in such form as 
the following: “It is my intention to 
operate a private burial ground on a 
modern plan. Though inexperienced, I 
have been granted this privilege under 
the laws of the state and I own some 
land particularly adapted to this purpose. 
Other business prevents my active con- 
nection at the present time,’’ etc. An- 
other one writes : “Will you kindly in- 
form me if there is any law regulating 
corporations or individuals operating 
cemeteries in the state of .’’ An- 
other writes : “The cemetery 
wants to build a receiving vault to hold 
about fifty bodies. How are they built? 
How much do they cost? Enclosed find 
stamped envelope for reply.” Still an- 
other writes: “I have been referred to 
you as a source from which I might se- 
cure information, by-laws, rules and 
regulations for a cemetery ; also the 
probable charge that should be made for 
the sale and use of lots in a place of 
about twenty-five hundred.” 
The cemetery planner and efficiency 
manager is the first need of new ceme- 
teries or old ones that want to modern- 
ize and his duties are broadening and 
his field of labor extending under mod- 
ern conditions of cemetery development. 
PROTECTING WHITE PINE 
The authorities of the Department of 
Agriculture are holding public hearings 
to consider the restriction or prohibition 
of shipments of pines and of currant 
and gooseberry bushes, to prevent the 
spread of white-pine blister rust. 
The question of whether a quarantine 
line should be drawn either at the west- 
ern border of the states of North Da- 
kota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, 
Oklahoma, and Texas, or at the Mis- 
sissippi River, or at some interme- 
diate point is being considered. The 
white-pine blister rust has continued to 
spread in New England and eastern New 
York and has been found to a limited 
extent in Minnesota and Wisconsin. 
Energetic measures for its eradication or 
control are being taken by Federal and 
State governments and private organiza- 
tions, in realization of the danger which 
threatens our immensely valuable pine 
forests. To assist in this control work 
and to prevent the blister rust from get- 
ting a foothold in the western United 
States, consideration will be given to 
the desirability of prohibiting all ship- 
ments of white-pine nursery stock from 
the Eastern and Central States to the 
Western States. Currant and gooseberry 
nursery stock must also be considered in 
this connection, since they are hosts for 
the blister rust, and a necessary stage in 
its development. A domestic quarantine 
to protect the pine forests of the West 
was proposed a year ago and a hearing 
held in February, 1916, by the Federal 
Horticultural Board. It was then found 
that the most effective results would be 
secured by prohibiting the shipment of 
eastern pines and gooseberry and cur- 
rant bushes west of a line drawn beyond 
the Mississippi. Such a quarantine was 
not then legally possible. 
Moreover, there was not at that time 
sufficient knowledge available of the 
distribution of the disease in the cen- 
tral states. Federal action was there- 
fore necessarily limited to securing the 
voluntary co-operation of nurserymen 
to prevent shipments of white pine west 
of the Great Plains. 
Congress at the last session amended 
the Plant Quarantine Act to permit the 
drawing of quarantine lines where need- 
ed to prevent the spread of plant pests 
rather than at the boundaries of infected 
States. The department is considering 
acting under this new authority in the 
light of more extended surveys. 
