PARK AND CEMRTERY 
46a 
both branches of the council elect two commissioners every 
September, for five years. No politics in it. 
We get 334 per cent interest on perpetual care funds. We 
do not sell a square inch without perpetual care. Three and 
one-half per cent is not enough. All of our perpetual care 
fund is deposited in the bank. We do not invest it in any- 
way. We formerly had 6 per cent in the 70’s. 
William Stone, Supt. 
Lake Vie<TV Cemetery, Jamestown, N. Y. 
We set aside for perpetual care 25 cents for each square 
foot of land sold. We use all of this fund for the care of 
the individual lot and roadways around it. 
We do not accept any money or responsibility for monu- 
ments or mausoleums on account of lightning, which might 
do a great deal of damage. 
At the present rate of money, not more than 3 or 4 per 
cent interest can be allowed and be safe. 
It is proper to guarantee care of grass only in perpetuity — 
nothing further. 
Perry W. Goodwin, Asst. Supt. 
* * * 
The per cent to be set aside depends on your selling price. 
The cost does not vary much — a 20x20 lot costs $2.10 per 
year to mow, weed and fertilize — or 1334 cents per sq. foot. 
If lots sell for 30 cents per sq. foot, then nearly one-half 
should be set aside ; if $100, then about one-eighth of selling 
price. 
In subdividing ground into lots 20x20 (allowing roads and 
some ornamental ground), a fair average on 80 acres is 5,000 
lots, equal to 2,000,000 sq. ft. in lots. Eighty acres equals 
3,484,800 sq. ft. About four-sevenths of this is lots and 
three-sevenths drives and parking. To provide care for this 
three-sevenths we must add loc to the I33'2C, making 233/20. 
and, for safety-, we can say 25c per sq. ft. should be the 
lowest perpetual care fund set aside per sq. ft. 
Where ground has been sold without care, assess lots not 
under care. This in many cases would stir up trouble if 
parties were not willing — or raise tbe price of unsold ground 
enough to provide a fund to care for that sold in early days 
when care was not thought of. 
Amount of deposit required should be determined by the 
cost calculated from actual cost of care. 
Concerning interest on funds, at present 3 per cent seems 
low. but in times when financial conditions are different 
3 per cent is a safe amount. 
Of course lots sell better where care is guaranteed in 
perpetuity. Yet we see around us daily the failure of trust 
companies, banks, stock and bond companies, etc., through the 
dishonesty of one employee. I should like to come back 
1,000 years from now and see how many cemeteries have 
the funds we set aside today, or how many even had a 
tombstone standing. In our own day we see burying grounds 
destroyed, built over, and the teeming, restless world walking 
unmindful over the graves of those not yet buried one hun- 
dred years. Unless a man is a benefactor, a saint, or a hero, 
he can look forward to a time when hiS dust will be scat- 
tered. So why not cremate now? 
Kansas City, Mo. Sid. J Hare. 
’L^i'vet^ie%> Cemetery, South Bend, Ind. 
In estimating for perpetual care, a difference in wages 
should receive careful consideration. I know that 75c per 
foot is required in some cemeteries, and, I know of another 
that does about as much as the one alluded to for loc per 
foot. There are others that set aside a certain percentage 
from the sales of lots without reference to a stipulated price 
per foot, say from 10 per cent up, of the net amount received 
from the sales of lot and single graves. Again, if extra work 
is required the amount must be governed by the amount of 
work called for, if more than general care the purchaser must 
pay the difference between general care and the extra work. 
I don't believe it best to agree to do too much. The agree- 
ment we have is as follows : “The grantor agrees that it 
will appropriate annually not less than twelve percentum of 
the gross receipts from the sale of all lots heretofore or 
hereafter sold, to constitute a permanent fund, the interest 
thereon to be applied solely to the repair of avenues, lawns, 
buildings, fences, hillsides, lots sold and unsold and public 
grounds, and such fund shall never under any pretext or 
evasion, be diverted from this declared purpose, and shall 
be kept unimpaired.” 
I have kept a careful account of the cost of keeping the 
grass cut and kept in good order, and I am satisfied that we 
can do the work well for the amount we have agreed to set 
aside for that purpose. This always has been and always 
will be an open question for consideration. I don’t believe 
any cemetery anywhere can be a guide for what the other 
one can do. 
We do not believe in two separate funds, for the reason 
that the lay of our grounds is such that after the avenues 
are once made they will require very little repairing — any- 
way, one fund is easier cared for than two. 
When portion of the cemetery has been sold without per- 
petual care, if the cemetery is owned by the city, an annual 
appropriation for general cleaning up is better than nothing. 
This will apply to any cemetery, and I think is the only way 
the place as a whole can have any general care. The original 
purchasers should be dealt with very leniently. If you can- 
not get what you would, take what you can get. 
We have five mausoleums, all new, and so far have had 
no calls for deposits for care of monumental work 
As to interest on funds, the banks give 4 per cent here, a 
good mortgage 5 or 6 per cent. John Cj. Barker, Supt. 
Luke J. Doogue, a Boston gardener, has the following to 
say concerning planting for the cemetery in a recent issue of 
the Boston American: Some people feel a preference for 
all white flowers in a cemetery, and it is even possible to sat- 
isfy tbis wish, which I think is wrong. Plants for a cemeteiy 
must be tough and able to stand rough treatment. Bulbs of 
tulips, hyacinth, and narcissus can lie planted in beds and in 
tbe grass with good results ; weeping phlox, a little low- 
growing plant that blossoms in the spring, with a mass of 
lilac and rose flowers, completely covering the plant. This 
makes a good covering for a grave ; low-growing Aubretia 
with purplish flowers in abundance ; rock cress with thou- 
sands of tiny white flowers. Soap wort, Saponaria ocymoides, 
will give you masses of crimson flowers in Alay. A collection 
of peonies can be chosen to give bloom for a few weeks, and 
there is nothing more beautiful than these plants. They- will 
take care of themselves and grow more beautiful- each y-ear. 
When the clumps grow large they- can be divided and more 
plants made. The hardy phloxes are a decoration in them- 
selves. For scrubs there is Spiraea Van Houttei, which, 
when in flower, looks like a fountain of white. Spiraea An- 
thony Waterer has crimson flowers in abundance; Viburnum 
plicatum with its white flowers in profusion ; Viburnum opu- 
lus, while the flowers are not as attractive, produces bunches 
of bright red berries in the fall that remain for many- weeks; 
golden alder with its golden leaves; the Altheas, blooming 
late in the season with gorgeous flowers ; Weigelas in va- 
riety. with different colored flowers. There is a cemetery in 
Providence where they use Euony-mous radicans to cover the 
stonework about lots, and when this has established itself the 
effect is very beautiful, the ma.sses of variegated green leaves 
covering tbe stiff gray stones. 
