599 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
BARE AND UNATTRACTIVE CEMETERY LANDSCAPE WITH CROWDED MONUMENTS. 
IMPROVING A BARREN CEMETERY LANDSCAPE 
The accompanying view of a row 
of monuments lined up like soldiers 
on the edge of a cemetery, illustrates 
to an unusual degree the necessity for 
careful planning of lots and placing 
of monuments. The stones are cred- 
itable examples of monumental work, 
and the grounds are neatly kept, yet 
the effect is hardly more pleasing than 
a view in an unkempt and dilapidated 
graveyard. 
With a view to showing how such 
conditions may be avoided or even 
mitigated by planting and planning 
we have asked several landscape archi- 
tects to suggest methods of improv- 
ing the scene shown in the picture. 
Their replies follow herewith: 
^ ^ $ 
The principal reason for the stark 
and desolate look of most cemeteries, 
reminding one more of a stone yard 
than a resting place for the dead, is 
that there is too little foliage to 
screen the monuments and separate 
them from each other, and at the 
same time unite them all into some 
semblance of a unified composition. 
The average cemetery is nothing but 
a collection of unrelated objects 
which look ugly and forbidding, even 
when they may be individually beau- 
tiful, because they are so jumbled 
together without any attempt at sep- 
aration or mitigation by the only 
thing that can do it, which is foliage. 
By the proper use of foliage, mostly 
in the form of shrubbery, evergreen 
and deciduous, the monuments can 
be separated from each other and 
from the general mass, and each one 
become actually more , conspicuous 
in itself, because not confused with 
the others. The materials to use 
for this purpose are all the shrubs 
and small trees that can be found in 
the nurseryman’s catalogue, and the 
more perennial plants that are used 
with discretion the better. Large 
trees, however beautiful and impres- 
sive in themselves, are unpopular, be- 
cause they drip on to the tombs. 
For more detailed discussion of 
this idea I refer you to an article of 
mine in Park and Cemetery some 
eleven years back, and an article in 
a forthcoming number of “Landscape 
Architecture” on the same subject. I 
enclose a little sketch traced from 
your picture to give some idea of 
what might be done by enclosing 
each monument in its own little gar- 
den. H. A. Caparn. 
New York City. 
* * * 
“How Not To Do It” is a good 
title to append to the view of a Mas- 
sachusetts cemetery sent to me for 
suggestions for improvement. 
This view is not an unusual one 
SUGGESTION FOR IMPROVEMENT OP THE LANDSCAPE SHOWN ABOVE. 
Each Monument Planted Off Into Its Own Individual Garden. 
H. A. Caparn, landscape architect. 
