64 
THE MODERN CEMETERY. 
Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans, La. 
The cemeteries of New Orleans are among its 
most novel and interesting features and are in 
strong contrast to those seen elsewhere in the Uni- 
ted States. 
They are literally “cities of the dead,” with av- 
enues of spacious and stately tombs; streets of less 
pretentious ones, and by-ways walled by solid 
blocks of tenement houses. The latter are the ov- 
en tombs, and represent the single grave sections 
of localities where dust can be returned to dust as 
Nature intended and Hygiene demands. 
Here, burial above ground is necessitated by 
the swampy nature of the site of the city, and its 
environs. Water stands within two or three feet of 
the surface at all times, and there is not only a pos- 
sibility, but a strong probability of an annual over- 
flow in many localities. 
Metairie contains about one hundred acres, and 
is the most’ im- 
portant and at- 
tractive of the 
numerous cem- 
eteries, most of 
which are of 
small area, and 
none of which 
approach the 
size of the prin- 
cipal ones in 
northern cities 
correspond i n g 
in importance 
and population 
to New Orleans. 
It is one of a 
group of com- 
paratively mo- 
dern origin that 
cluster along the canal at a point about midway be- 
tween the heart of the city and the West End — a 
resort on Lake Ponchartrain that is in great favor 
during summer. Metairie is accessible by the 
“shell road,’’ famous in former days among the 
drives of America, but which now wears a shabby 
and neglected air, although not without attractions. 
These are principally due to the proximity of the 
distinctly picturesque canal with its channel crowd- 
ed in places by floating islands of water hyacinths, 
its overhanging trees, trailing dewberry vines red 
and black with fruit, and tangles of pretty things 
growing with the free grace of all unhampered 
wildlings. 
The cemeteries are also easily and quickly 
reached by steam dummy trains that run at fre- 
quent intervals from a point on Canal street, within 
a few blocks of the Clay statue, — the hub of the 
big, rambling town. 
The triple-arched entrance to Metairie is dis- 
tinctive by reason of the clinging cover of Ficus- 
repens which clothes it in every part with a close 
fitting garment. This vine is popularly used in 
New Orleans for covering plain surfaces, just as 
Japan Ivy ( Ampelopsis Veitchii) is used in the north. 
It clings as the Ivy does, but resembles it in no 
other respect. In the north the Ficus is a green- 
house climber, here it is used extensively as an out 
of door evergreen. Besides the three arches of the 
entrance and part of the enclosing wall being cov- 
ered with it, it is also used on the gate keeper’s 
lodge, a concrete building just inside the entrance, 
and on the big receiving vault, (through which runs 
an open arch way with oven-like receptacles on ei- 
ther side from floor to ceiling), the exterior walls 
of which are hidden from ground to gable by its 
green covering. 
Metairie Has 
an open, spaci- 
ous air unlike 
the crowded ef- 
fect in the older 
cemeteries. 
Each tomb 
stands on its 
own plat of 
grass, a little a- 
part from those 
on either side, 
and there are 
vines, shrub- 
bery and flow- 
ers about them, 
while these wi- 
der avenues are 
lined with fine 
shade trees including Live Oaks, bitter Oranges, 
(which are much used as street trees throughout 
the city), Magnolias, etc. A gray stone wall tomb 
almost smothered in Confederate creeper, (Rinkes- 
porum), whitened by loose drifts of snowy star-like 
flowers is not unusual, and altogether, with its Fig 
and Oleander trees, vines bright with yellow Big- 
nonia blossoms. Pomegranates heavy with a burden 
of scarlet bloom, and many other plants and flow- 
ers unusual to northern eyes, the cemetery seems 
a Garden city of the Dead — its small white palaces 
set in unexpected greenery and ‘bloom. 
Gardening in Metairie goes on the year round. 
About the middle of November the winter plant- 
ing is done, the varieties then set out, or started 
from seed corresponding with the Spring garden- 
ing work of the north. Phlox Drummondi and 
