PARK AND CEMETERY. 
269 
FOREST HILL CEMETERY, KANSAS CITY, MO. 
From time to time in these columns there have 
been given illustrations and other matter concern- 
ing improvements contemplated and in progress in 
Forest Hill Cemetery, Kansas City, Mo. There are 
not many instances on record, although there are 
many in fact, where the development of rough and 
ordinary land has offered so many transformation 
scenes under vigorous and intelligent treatment as 
the cemetery under notice. Instances where a short 
season has entirely obliterated the crude- 
ness of unkempt nature, where conditions 
have not been favorable, or the time not 
ripe, for the more finished efforts of her 
wild picture making, and in its place 
presented promises of landscape effects 
to refresh and inspire in the near future. 
Some notes in connection with Forest 
Hill Cemetery will be of interest. The 
cemetery was started in 1888, and its 
establishment was due to a growing idea 
that a burial place was needed far enough 
away from the rapidly increasing popu- 
lation of Kansas City as to secure its free- 
dom from encroachment and to insure all 
the best conditions pertaining to the use 
and care of cemeteries serving the needs 
This ground has a variation in level of 125 feet 
inside its boundaries, and is 200 feet above the busi- 
ness center of the city. It is so located that views 
in every direction, for miles around, '‘may be had. 
The plot was mostly farming land, with a few 
scattering forest trees remaining, and the landscape 
problem was not given consideration. Eighty acres 
were at once platted and maples and elms set in 
lines along the drives, giving long rows of trees and 
nothing else but shade. 
arge communities. 
of 1 
Another factor in its establishment was the ex- 
perience of so many other cities, where frequent 
change and removal of the dead to points beyond 
city limits was a matter of history. This determined 
the company in the choice of land, and 320 acres 
of high rolling ground eight miles from the business 
portion of the city and four miles beyond the outer 
skirst of the residence district was selected. 
NYMPHVEA LAKE.— NINETY DAYS AFTER EXCAVATION COMMENCED. 
LOWER TWIN LAKE AND PUBLIC RECEIVING VAULT. 
The first company liquidated and a second as- 
sociation took hold and greatly changed the plans. 
A landscape architect was employed and thousands 
of trees and shrubs were purchased, with the object 
of bringing the grounds to the condition of the mod- 
ern cemetery. The roads follow the natural contour 
of the land, giving easy grades from the low to the 
high ground. Over ten thousand trees and shrubs 
were planted on these eighty acres, and 
many more are to be added. 
The past two years have witnessed 
many changes in the original plans. 
Vistas have been cut through where the 
maples and elms along the drives ob- 
structed the view, while many more of 
these trees have been cut out or trans- 
planted to break up the monotony of 
their lines. Others have been and will 
be taken out to be replaced by more 
ornamental trees, singly or in groups, 
so that before long the work of the first 
crude efforts at improvement will be 
obliterated. 
Our readers will remember particu- 
larly the transformation scene given in 
the August issue of 1896, and it may be 
inferred from the above details that many 
