274 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
families, and may sell lots for family bury- 
ing ground or to individuals for burial 
purposes." 
“Public graveyards . . . not under the 
control of any corporation, sole organiza- 
tion or society, and located within the lim- 
its of cities, villages, town, townships, or 
counties not under township organization, 
shall and may be controlled or vacated by 
the corporate authorities of such city, vil- 
lage, township or county, in such manner 
as such authorities may deem proper, and 
in the case of towns, such control may be 
vested in three trustees. Said trustees shall 
be elected by the voters of such town at 
the next annual town meeting therein, and 
their term of office shall be one, tw'o and 
three years respectively. . . . Said trus- 
tees shall determine by lot which of them 
shall hold the various terms. At each 
succeeding town meeting after the ne.xt one 
trustee is to be chosen for a three year 
term." 
S.\LE OF UNNECESS.VRY L.\NDS. 
Incorporated associations owning ceme- 
ASKED AND 
Park Fires from Smokins. 
Editor Asked and Answered; Within the 
past three years we have had live or six 
fires started in the wooded sections of our 
parks. With two exceptions these were dis- 
covered in season so that not much damage 
was done. These fires were traced to the 
carelessness of smokers of cigarettes and 
cigars. We have a consideralde acreage of 
natural woodlands and would ask if it is 
customary or practicable to prohibit smok- 
ing in public parks of this nature. — Chmn. 
Pk. Com. 
It does not seem practical or desirable to 
me to prohibit smoking in public parks. 
The same watchfulness which would be 
necessary to enforce such an ordinance will 
prevent serious wood fires. We make it a 
practice to burn our wooded tracts over in 
the late fall, when conditions are favorable, 
and after we have protected young plant- 
ings of evergreens through belts of culti- 
vated or barren ground. With a proper 
force of men for control, and under favor- 
able action of a light breeze, large tracts 
of land can be burned over quickly without 
doing any particular harm. We do this, 
not because we consider it of benefit to the 
woodland, but because we know that we 
will be unable to detect wood fires which 
always occur in the spring in time to pre- 
vent .serious damage. 
Theo. Wirth, Supt. of Pks. 
Minneapolis, Minn. 
It is neither customary nor practical to 
prohibit smoking in public parks having 
natural woodlands. It is usual to keep such 
woodlands sufficiently clean from combusti- 
ble rubbish to be free from danger of seri- 
ous injury to the trees by fires. In some 
tery lands in a county of less than 100,000 
inhabitants, may sell such lands as are not 
suitable or required for burial purposes 
and as contain no graves. But the trustees 
must first call a meeting of the lot owners 
and secure the consent of a majority of 
those voting on the question of sale. No- 
tice of the meeting must be given in a 
newspaper in the county for three succes- 
sive weeks previous to the meeting. If no 
newspaper is published in the county, pub- 
lication must be made in the newspaper 
nearest the cemetery. The sale must be 
made at public sale, to the highest bidder, 
upon such terms as the trustees may de- 
termine. Notice of the sale must be given 
in the same manner as the notice of the 
meeting to authorize the sale. “The pro- 
ceeds of the sale of such lands may be 
used to pay indebtedness of such associa- 
tion, or for purchasing other lands for 
burial purposes, or for ornamenting or 
improving such cemetery, as the trustees 
or other officers having control of the same 
may determine." 
ANSWERED 
respects this practice is ol^jectionable, espe- 
cially from an esthetic point of view, as it 
great!}' alters the natural appearance of the 
woodlands by discouraging wild flowers 
and undergrowth, and it tends to eliminate 
certain varieties of trees which suffer from 
fires more than others ; but it seems to be 
the only reasonably safe procedure. 
Olmsted Brothers. 
Brookline, Mass. 
During my four years as landscape archi- 
tect to the park commission of Los .Angeles 
I saw a good deal of the danger of park 
fires. It is probably more serious in that 
region than in any other section in the 
Lbiited States, because of the long, exces- 
si\’e dry period. In our large 3,000-acre 
park we had several fires during my time, 
none of these, however, were occasioned by 
smoking by the public. We did not think it 
practical or possible to prohibit smoking, 
although we recognized the possible dan- 
ger. We attempted to control the fire situ- 
ation by a careful and thorough patrol sys- 
tem. I have visited most of the larger 
parks of this country and do not recall 
ever having seen one in which “no smok- 
ing” rules were made effective. It has been 
my experience that the American public 
is e.xtremely lawless in the parks anyway. 
It is very difficult to control them in such 
matters as throwing papers, peanut shells, 
etc., things which are easily seen and com- 
paratively easily prevented by good po- 
licing. I think it would be almost impossi- 
ble to prevent smoking. In the case of 
smaller parks which are largely in turf, I 
do not think the danger is worth considera- 
tion. It is only in the large reservation 
type of park during the dry months of the 
year that the danger is serious, and I bc- 
lie\'e that a reasonably good patrol system 
should prevent the few fires which orig- 
inate in this way from becoming disastrous. 
I see no reason why the system in vogue in 
the National Forests, of frequent notices 
calling people's attention to the danger of 
throwing down matches or burning tobacco, 
should not be used. Ordinances might bc- 
passed placing a severe penalty upon people 
through whose carelessness in this way fires 
originate. These two preventive systems, 
together with effective patrol, I believe, 
should solve the problem. From a matter 
of dollars and cents, it would probably he 
cheaper to maintain effective fire patrol 
than to enforce “no smoking'’ rules. 
L. -T. Cox, 
Professor of Landscape Engineering, 
New York State College of Forestry. 
Syracuse, New York. 
White Pine or Red Pine 
In further reply to the inquiry in }'our 
“Asked and .Answered" department in the 
October Park and Cemetery : Personally, I 
am not afraid of the white pine blister and 
I believe that the scare will blow over like 
other diseases or insects. The authorities 
think it is going to wreck the country but 
results have not proved this to be the case. 
I feel sure it can be handled and, person- 
ally, I would not hesitate to continue plant- 
ing the white pine. There is a strict quar- 
antine on this species, however, and our 
present shipments are confined to Alassa- 
chusetts, and this under the most careful 
state inspection. The red pine does not 
take the place of the white pine and the red 
pine should certainly be planted much more 
freely than it has been in the past. 
Harl.^n P. Kelsey. 
Salem, Mass. 
Cemetery Buildings 
Editor Park and Cemetery: A 'Wis- 
consin city has called upon this bureau 
for information relative to the construc- 
tion of chapels and rest rooms in ceme- 
teries. This is a subject upon which we 
have not previously had occasion to collect 
information, and therefore have very little 
information on the subject. It occurs to 
me that this is a subject upon which per- 
haps you have already collected some valu- 
able information. 'We are interested in 
knowing, for instance, what cities have 
such buildings ; about what the cost is ; 
what equipment or facilities they afford ; 
and any other information which would be 
of value to a city contemplating the con- 
struction of such a building in a municipal 
cemetery. 
Ford H. MacGregor, 
Municipal Reference Bureau, University 
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis. 
We have published in Park .}.nd Ceme- 
tery many illustrated descriptions of chap- 
els, receiving vaults and administration 
buildings of all kinds from time to time, 
but there is nothing in the way of stock 
designs or books of reference that we 
could furnish you on this subject. There 
4 k exchange cf experience on practical matters by our readers. You 
are inviied to contribute questions and answers to this departmuU 
