PARK AND CEMETERYc 
Crowded Monviments. 
Bv W. X. Ruuu. 
The lawn plan is practically the only plan recognized 
liv the American cemetery manager of today. The 
advantages of this system and the increased beauty of 
cemeteries conducted in this manner are so well recog- 
nized as no longer to be a subject for discussion, and 
}et we see in many parts of many cemeteries, espe- 
cially in the cheaper parts of the grounds, a condition 
which entirely nullifies the work done under the lawn 
plan, and which totally destroys all good landscape 
effiects. We have done away with copings, fences, 
hedges, and tall slabs, to the great advantage of all 
concerned, but so long as we allow the erection of 
monuments in close proximity to each other, the good 
of abolishing those unsightly things is largely nullified. 
The tendency of a large class, whose means are lim- 
ited, is towards show. The smallest possible lot, and 
the largest possible monument is the rule with them, 
and where, as is often the case, the smaller lots are 
grouped together, a sad condition of things is soon 
evident. Meaningless and ugly shapes of the stone 
cutter’s “art” of white, gray, pink, blue and mottled 
marble, all the colors of Barre, Quincy, Westerly, 
Scotch granites, pinks, pink browns, deep browns, 
bluish browns, blacks, cream colors, all the shades of 
gray,— one is tempted to say all the colors of the rain- 
bow — are massed and jumbled together, until the land- 
scape is nothing but group after group of clashing 
colors and ugly forms. One loses in the cemetery his 
tendency toward the modern and more liberal forms 
of belief, and goes back to the literal brimstone when 
viewing the work of the traveling monument peddler 
(and of many who do not travel) and the design-book 
man. There is no adequate punishment for them in 
this world, but let us hope for the best (or rather the 
worst) in the future one. 
The lawn plan carried to its logical conclusion 
would, of course, eliminate all monumental structures 
of any kind projecting above ground. The times are 
not ripe, however, for such radical steps. The mon- 
ument is with us to sta}' a long time — perhaps always. 
Statistics are not at hand, but the writer will venture 
the assertion that during the past year, and during 
each year for a long time back, the monuments erected 
both in number and value largely exceeded those of 
previous years. 
The cpiestion is not of attempting the impossible and 
trying to do away with them, but of so regulating their 
erection as to mitigate the evil as much as possible. 
Rules adopted by some cemeteries limiting the space 
occupied by the monument to a small percentage of 
the total area of the lot are excellent and effective 
and should be in force in all cemeteries. They have, 
however, one defect. Occasionally a lot owner will 
decrease the base area of his monument beyond all 
proper proportion in order to erect a large monument 
on a small lot. 
It is, of course, desirable on all lots fronting on 
drives to set back the monuments as far as possible, 
but in inside lots the monument should always be 
placed in the exact center of the lot. This will assure 
each one being at the greatest possible distance from 
the other, and will often interfere with the grave 
spaces so that the purchase of a large lot is necessary, 
and the larger the better (or rather, less bad) the 
effect. 
A plan tried at first on a small scale and now adopted 
in all new sections in our grounds, and which we be- 
lieve has done more and will do more for the appear- 
ance of the grounds than any other regulation, is the 
prohibiting of monuments altogether on certain desig- 
nated lots, and the putting of a clause to that effect 
in the deeds. The plan is to lay out alternately a large j 
and a smaller lot, on the latter the monument being j; 
prohibited. It will be readily seen that in this way h 
