PARK AND CEMETERY . 
140 
The foregoing;, as stated in the beginning, 
applies largely to the laying out of lots in 
cemeteries where the ground is fairly uni- 
form in its character. The more broken 
and diverse the character of the sections, 
the more will the superintendent be com- 
pelled to vary from the plans suggested 
here. It will be found very difficult to sell 
a lot which lies lower than the adjacent 
walk or drive, hence it is evident that where 
there are depressions in the shape of small 
gullies, walks shall in all cases follow them. 
Where circular depressions exist, in grading 
the section they wdll, of course, be filled to 
a certain extent. It is an axiom that no 
part of a section should be so graded as to 
allow water to stand upon it. 
Of course the superintendent will take 
advantage of mounds and desirable parts 
of the sections to lay them out in large 
lots and will be guided by the slope of the 
ground in setting his stakes and in facing 
his lots. In a general way, the less desir- 
able parts of the sections will be cut into 
small lots and the more desirable the 
ground the larger the lot, this simply as 
a plain business proposition. The prominent 
points at intersections of the drives should 
be laid out into one or several large lots 
and if the point of the section is quite sharp 
it will be advisable to cut back the lot 
some little distance and use the space so 
left out for the planting of shrubbery. 
PRICING. 
While not coming strictly within the scope 
of this paper, the pricing of lots is inti- 
mately connected with it and a few wcfrds 
may be advisable. 
The W'riter does not believe in pricing lots 
to the customer by the square foot. Sepa- 
rate prices should be fixed for each lot as 
a whole. These can be arrived at by fixing 
a square foot basis for a certain section 
or for parts of the section, estimating the 
area and obtaining the price in that way, 
adding a little to the prices of the more 
desirable lots and perhaps deducting a little 
from the lots which will be less readily 
salable. For instance, it wdll be found 
that lots on the drive or on an elevated 
part of the section will be sold very readily 
and in order to prevent their being taken 
up immediately the section is placed on sale, 
a material advance must be made in the 
price of such lots, the general idea being 
to price each lot according to its salability. 
It is our practice to increase the price of 
the lots bordering on drives about 10 to 15 
per cent, to add about 10 per cent to corner 
lots or to lots having a walk on two of their 
sides. In the smaller lots it is also the prac- 
tice to add about 10 per cent to a lot on w'hich 
a monument is allowed over that on w'hich 
one is not allowed, or if it is not desired to 
increase the total price of the section, an 
advance of 5 per cent could be made on 
the monument lot and a reduction of 5 per 
cent on the lot on w'hich no monument is 
allowed. This is a good proposition in sev- 
eral ways. In the first place, it costs more 
to care for a lot with a monument on it 
than one on which there is no monument. 
In the second place, it* is well worth while 
to offer inducements to the small lot owner 
to dispense with a monument. 
The writer is not averse to a reasonable 
number of monuments of good design and 
material in a cemetery and believes it will 
be found impossible to prevent their use. 
The monument is with us and with us to 
stay. The evils of the monument are: good 
monuments badly placed; bad monuments — ■ 
that is, of poor material or faulty design — ■ 
wherever placed, and the crowding of mon- 
uments. The poor material and the faulty 
design are found largely in the cheaper 
class of lots and the class of people who 
buy these lots have a strong tendency to 
save on the size of the lot and put the 
money into a monument, thereby frequently 
making the monument just that much more 
hideous and unsightly. 
I would not be understood as taking the 
position that a small monument cannot be 
just as attractive and just as artistic as a 
large one. In theory they can be, in prac- 
tice they ar^ not. 
FLATS, 
It is well to adopt a standard scale for 
all plats. Perhaps the best scale for the 
original plat is one of 20 feet to the inch. 
Larger than this becomes unwieldy and a 
smaller scale does not allow sufficient space. 
The original plat should be made on a first 
class quality of cloth backed paper and all 
construction figures should appear thereon. 
From this a tracing can be made for record, 
and in this connection it should be noted 
that in the state of Illinois at least a severe 
penalty is provided for those who fail to 
have a plat of each section recorded with 
the public recorder before making sales. 
For working plats, blue prints, etc., a re- 
duced plat to the scale of 40 feet to the 
inch may be made. A copy of this on trac- 
ing cloth with the lines drawn somewhat 
heavier and the numbers and dimension 
figures also made heavier, may be reduced 
photographically for a zinc etching at a 
very small expense and this can be printed 
from very cheaply, thus making it possible 
to furnish each lot owner with a plat of 
the section in which his lot is, so that he 
can readily locate it without having to take 
the time of the employees in showing him 
where it is. 
* • « 
In conclusion the writer would not be un- 
derstood as stating that the methods pointed 
out in this paper are the only ones. They 
have been found to work well in his prac- 
tice and under the conditions obtaining in 
Mount Greenwood Cemetery, but there are 
no two places where conditions are the same 
and each superintendent will have to work 
out his own plan to fit his own conditions. 
The discussion which followed re- 
ferred principally to monuments. O. C. 
Simonds, Chicago, who was called upon 
by the president, said instead of pro- 
hibiting the erection of monuments on 
certain lots, as suggested by Mr. Rudd, 
he preferred to make these announce- 
ments in this way ; “In this section 
the lots are reserved for people who 
do not care to have monuments.” He 
had found in the old sections of ceme- 
teries a good many lots that did not 
have monuments and never would 
have, and assuming those people who 
did not have monuments would prefer 
not to have their neighbors have them, 
they would set aside one section and 
make the announcement as above. 
Frederick Green said the practice in 
“Lake View,” Cleveland, was to tell the 
people “In this section there are a num- 
ber of lots too small to have monu- 
ments upon them.” 
H. Wilson Ross said the experience 
in Newton Cemetery showed the only 
way to restrict the erection of monu- 
ments was to have it so specified in 
the deed, otherwise children of the third 
or fourth generation will violate the in- 
tentions of their ancestors. 
W. H. Druckemiller said there should 
be great flexibility in the rules of every 
cemetery. He suggested this clause for 
every cemetery deed : “This ground is 
conditioned upon the rules as they now 
exist, or may hereafter be enacted or 
created.” 
John J. Stephens, Columbus, O., read 
a paper on “Tree Planting and Tree 
Pruning” that Mr. Falconer and Mr. 
McCarthy said covered the subject com- 
pletely. 
“The Relative Values of Services, 
Burial Lots and other Accommodations” 
was the subject of a paper by Thomas 
White, Fairhaven, Mass., called forth 
an animated discussion regarding the 
prices of lots in cemeteries conducted 
on the mutual plan as compared with 
those operated for profit. 
The Question Box was prolific in 
timely questions. The first to be con- 
sidered wa.s “Methods in use for com- 
munication between office and grounds?” 
At Forest Home, Milwaukee, Wis., a 
private telephone system is in use with 
eight stations in the grounds. Lake- 
wood, Minneapolis, Minn., has a sys- 
tem of telephones at fifteen stations. 
A system of gong signals given from 
a tall pole near the center of the 
grounds. At Lakeview, Cleveland, O., 
the Bell telephone system connects with 
eleven stations ip addition to which 
there are six gongs in different parts 
of the grounds. The Hamilton, Ont., 
cemetery has a private telephone with 
six stations. The telephones are at- 
tached to trees, each of these has a 
gong placed against a sounding board, 
about twenty-five feet from the ground 
The service is satisfactory and economi- 
cal. At Hollywood, Richmond, Va., 
two magneto poles with gong and tele- 
phone attachments have been installed 
at an outlay of $15. The line extends 
three-fourths of a mile. Two tele- 
phones and a gong are operated on it 
successfully. 
“Does a Community Derive more 
Benefit from a Stock Corporation than 
a Mutual Corporation?” was the next 
question. F. Eurich saw good in both 
plans. T. McCarthy considered com- 
mercialism out of place in cemeteries, 
and thought all cemeteries should be ' 
under government supervision and be 
examined as insurance companies are. 
“Care and Improvement of Small ' 
Pond and Lakes” was discussed briefly 
by O. C. Simonds and H. W. Ross. 
The former said men in boats keep the 
weeds out of the lakes in his cemetery ; 
by means of a long net supported by 
floats the surface of the water is kept 
clear. Sulphate of copper is sometimes 
used to clarify the water, it will also 
destroy any undergrowth. Mr. Ross 
said the water in his pond was drawn 
off once a year and the bottom scraped 
Sulphate of copper is used twice a year 
to kill algfe; if too strong it will kill 
the fish. 
An interesting discussion followed the 
