i6 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
Moneywort the plant of which I write is also 
known as “loosestrife,” and is classed as an evergreen 
covering plant and trailer and recommended as well 
adapted for planting on wet ground or waterside. 
But I have nd'ver found any ground on which it will 
not grow, indeed it is the hardest plant to kill that 
I know of, horse-radish not excepted. It is also the 
easiest to propagate. The picture at the head of 
this article shows leaves, stem, and also roots; but it 
should be very distinctly understood that wherever 
the stem where the leaves join touches the ground and 
continues for but a short time in contact with it, it 
will throw out roots, grasp the earth and thus another 
plant is made; and so on without end. Such is also 
the case if a small piece of the plant is broken off, 
carried a short distance, dropped on the ground and 
left, and as the word trailer implies, it drags or 
draws along the ground all the time and is continu- 
ally propagating itself in every direction. It is a 
pretty plant in the spring and summer; Peter Hen- 
derson calls it an “old favorite,” and it bears a small 
yellow bell shaped flower; in June the leaves are of 
a nice green color, but in winter they turn to a dull 
dirty red. 
It seems to want the earth and is determined to 
take possession. 
However pleasant anything may be while we 
can have just as much or just as little as we please, 
it will become very disagreeable and unsatisfactory 
when forced upon us beyond what we desire and 
surely we have had and still have more than enough 
of this. 
A weed is a plant where one does not want it. 
So with us moneywort is a weed and a very per- 
nicious one at that, and I would gladly welcome 
any advice, encouragement or assistance in making 
my attack upon it. 
Our friend and brother superintendent, Bellett 
Lawson the elder, wrote to me about two years ago 
saying that he knew of a cemetery in Washington, 
D. C., where it had got such a hold, that its eradica- 
tion was almost impossible. He advised me in 
making the attack to fork over the ground, and by 
hand remove all fibrous roots, depositing them on 
a wheelbarrow or ground cloth, then to take them 
to a hard bare spot where they could be burned 
when dry. 
If any superintendent should be so fortunate as 
to have none of this weed let him see to it that no 
one shall ever have- opportunity to introduce it into 
his grounds. The botanical name of this plant is 
Lysimachia Nummularia. If any member of the A. 
A. C. S., can give any information on this subject I 
would gladly welcome it. 
Hezekiah Hulme, 
Sexton, Grove Cemetery, New Brighton, Pa. 
THOUGHTS ON CEMETERIES. 
While the great majority of professional and busi- 
ness men seldom give their thoughts to cemeteries and 
as a rule do not desire to even visit the last resting place 
of loved ones gone before, but prefer that whatever 
transactions necessity compels to be had with the monu- 
ment dealer and cemetery man shall be delegated to 
either wife, daughter, mother or sister; we superin- 
tendents perhaps upon the same principle as they, do a 
great deal of thinking in our occupation because it is our 
“business.” I once surprised one of the members of our 
Board of Trustees, when in reply to his question if a cer- 
tain individual who was noted for his frequent visits to 
the cemetery, annoyed us or was meddlesome, I said 
yes, and hoped he would be elected a Trustee at an 
early day, as I believed he would then no longer make 
his appearance. 
Retrospectively our thoughts are carried to the ori- 
gin of cemeteries, we need not go back to the time when 
Abraham purchased the field of Machpelah as recorded 
in sacred history, to become assured that cemeteries 
were in existence for many centuries prior to the Chris- 
tian era, but content ourselves with their formation in 
this country. In the order of construction “Mount 
Auburn” near Boston, comes first. It was consecrated 
in 1831. Afterward came “Laurel Hill,” Philadelphia; 
“Greenwood,” Brooklyn; “Spring Grove,” Cincinnati 
and the Albany, N. Y. “Rural,” the latter being incor- 
porated in the year 1841, justly and without dispute, 
claims the richest natural beauties and endowments, 
and was the first to establish the system for the “Per- 
petual Care” of lots by an amendment to its charter in 
the year 1845, through the far-sighted energy and zeal 
of one of the trustees Mr. John I. Wendell. He con- 
ceived the plan from beholding the well kept lots of 
those who had bequeathed a legacy to a certain church 
corporation empowered to expend the interest thereon 
in caring for their respective lots in a near-by “Church- 
yard.” 
Here we find the beginning of cemetery corporations, 
and now there are but few cities, or even small towns 
and villages that do not boast of their “cities of the 
dead,” suburban; yet in many instances under munici- 
pal control, as are public parks, while others are owned 
and governed by private or individual corporations simi- 
lar to banking institutions, etc. To elevate the charac- 
ter of all cemeteries, and improve them upon the most 
modern and best accepted principles, was the aim and 
object of our esteemed, progressive and venerable 
“Father” Nichols, when in the year 1886 he originated 
and formed the “Association of American Cemetery 
Superintendents.” Its widespread influence is now ex- 
erted not only in those cemeteries whose superintendents 
are members of it, but also extends to many if not all 
that have no representation, and whose managers are 
keeping abreast of the times by reading the “reports” of 
our annual-conventions, and as regular subscribers to, 
and readers of our official organ, the “Park and Ceme- 
tery,” a journal that no up-to-date and energetic person 
who is engaged in such work as its title implies can well 
afford to get along without, unless he be extremely sup- 
