THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
27 
them with trees and shrubs, which will send their 
branches over the water and give deep shadows and 
reflections. 
In making selections for planting, we should 
seek those things which give cheerfulness. Decidu- 
ous trees and blossoming shrubs are really more ap- 
propriate than Norway spruces. Evergreens ought, 
however, to be plentifully used, because they give 
us color during the six months of the year when 
other trees are leafless. Their somberness can be 
relieved by having a variety of them. Just after a 
fall of snow there is nothing somber about the young 
Austrian pines, as they hold a white ball at the end 
of each branch, and nothing more graceful than the 
young hemlocks with their fleecy burdens. How 
pleasing, too, in the winter and early spring, are 
the red and purple of the dogwoods, the soft grays 
and browns of the honeysuckles, willows and syrin- 
gas, the green of the corchorus and sassafras, and 
the white bark of the birches ! The strawberry and 
barberry bushes, which Mr. Powell commends so 
highly on account of their ornamental fruit, are just 
as appropriate for a cemetery as for home grounds, 
and to them should be added the snowberry, Indian 
currant, high-bush cranberry, wild roses and bitter- 
sweet. We usually think of our colder months as 
dreary and monotonous, but occasionally when a 
winter’s rain is frozen as it falls, and all the delicate 
spray-like branches of our shrubs become encased 
in ice, the most costly jewelry is not to be com- 
pared with the magnificence of the following morn- 
ing, when each branch glistens in the sunlight with 
every conceivable color. 
Nearly every one will remember the del ight 
with which we as children greeted the first wild flow- 
ers of spring. Some are fortunate enough to enjoy 
these spring effects all through life, and the flowers 
which produce them should be planted wherever 
they will find a congenial home. The groups of 
shrubs, whose branches touch the ground destroy 
some grass, but they compensate for this by making 
capital places for bloodroots, trilliums, hepaticas, 
violets, tulips, snowdrops, crocuses, hyacinths and 
all the early spring flowers which ripen by the time 
the shrubs are in full leaf. 
I have often been told by residents of small 
towns aud country places that the beautiful effects 
produced by landscape gardening can be easily ob- 
tained in the cemeteries near large cities, “where 
they have plenty of money, but must not be expect- 
ed with us, where we have to get along on so little.” 
This is a great mistake. Natural beauty is not ex- 
pensive. Usually in country places, all the trees, 
shrubs and herbaceous plants really necessary to 
produce the effects desired can be had for the labor 
of digging them. The best things supplied by nurs- 
eries — that is, the things that are hardy and will usu- 
ally take care of themsclve.s — can be had for very 
little money. What is really needed more than 
money is an appreciation of the simple, common- 
place beauty that nature is creating all the time, a 
little taste, and a love for our plant neighbors that 
will make us move them in a tender manner, with- 
out mutilation, to where they are needed, and sup- 
ply them with the nourishment they require in the 
shape of good soil. 
Any one writing an article on this subject should 
at the outset acknowledge the services of the late 
Adolph Strauch, who did more than any other man 
to develop the art of landscape gardening in ceme- 
teries. Dozens of burial places near our leading 
cities are indebted to his suggestions for their most 
attractive features. So far as I have observed, the 
beauty of the landscape effects produced by him at 
Spring Grove, Cincinnati, is not surpassed or equaled 
by that of any other cemetery, unless it be at .Oak- 
woods, near Troy, N. Y. , where an associate and 
intimate friend of Mr. Strauch has developed views 
that are remarkably attractive. 
Objections are frequently made to setting aside 
so much land for burials. “That any portions of 
the earth,” says Mr. Norton, “should be given ab- 
solutely in fee and forever to a dead body, set off 
and preserved eternally simply to mark the spot 
where a dead body was taken back into the ele- 
ments of earth, seems to mein itself a strange idea.” 
But when cemeteries are established and developed 
in accordance with the true principles of landscape 
gardening, all cause for criticism vanishes, because 
they may be made as useful to the living, as refin- 
ing and instructive as any public park. Think for 
a moment of what might be the history of a park- 
like cemetery ! At first, by its beauty, its quietness, 
its harboring of native songsters, it helps to assuage 
the grief of the living at the loss of their friends. 
After serving this useful purpose for a few genera- 
tions, its actual use as a place of interment should 
cease, but if it is unspoiled by intruding and offen- 
sive monuments, imprudently proclaiming our child- 
ish self-conceit, it continues to grow in dignity and 
grandeur with the added years. Its trees become 
patriarchs. The people who walk admiringly 
through its groves and open glades say to them- 
selves: “For this beauty which we enjoy we are 
indebted to the kindly, unselfish feelings, the wis- 
dom and foresight of our forefathers, from whom we 
are proud to have descended.” At all times such a 
cemetery stimulates in the community so fortunate 
as to possess it an appreciation and love for the 
beautiful things of this world, and encourages the 
development of such things about the homes of the 
living. What can be more useful than that which 
soothes the sorrows and adds to the pleasures of 
life ' O. C. SiMONDS, In American Gardening . 
