PARK AND CEMETERY. 
31 
PERPETUAL CARE OF CEMETERIES. 
The importance of perpetual care as a leading 
feature of cemetery management is rapidly absorb- 
ing the attention of all interested in promoting the 
welfare of the cemetery, whether it be in connec- 
tion with the grave yards of the hamlet or detached 
settlement, or progressively up through the larger 
burial grounds of our villages, towns and cities. 
Much careful thought has been given the sub- 
ject, and it has grown to such proportions in public 
estimation that some states have passed laws regu- 
lating its details and the provision of funds out of 
the sales of lots to ensure permanent establishment. 
All new cemeteries of recent years and the ma- 
jority of the older ones of any considerable size, 
have adopted the system; and in the case of the 
older ones, where numbers of their lots have been 
filled under the old system, strenuous efforts are 
made and with great success, to induce the owners 
to endow the management with sufficient funds to 
care for them in perpetuity. For the ideas of perpet- 
ual care appeals most strongly to all thinking people. 
There is little or no difficulty in the way of incor- 
porating “perpetual care” into the establishment 
and control of a new cemetery. It resolves itself 
into the question of carefully estimating the cost of 
maintenance of its lots under the varying conditions 
imposed upon them by their owners, and of setting 
aside a sufficient proportion of the amount of sales 
to create a fund under trust in perpetuity to secure 
their care for all future time. The main point to be 
carefully taken into account in the provision of such 
a fund is that the income from such a fund is liable 
to become less in the future as the interest value of 
money gradually reaches its base. 
That all cemeteries should be placed under the 
conditions of “perpetual care” may now be taken 
as a fundamental principle, although it is practically 
certain that very many by reason of location and 
other controlling conditions will be obliterated, and 
their interred absorbed by the cemeteries more ad- 
vantageously located. 
Where additions are made to cemeteries the 
queestion of perpetual care is practically the same 
as with a new plat. The same careful estimate of 
the probable cost of maintenance under ruling con- 
ditions should be made and the proportion of sales 
to be funded should be calculated to assure suffi- 
cient income under all possible contingencies. This 
is the main question in a nutshell. 
Then the varying details should not be over- 
looked. The cost of maintenance of a lawn lot with 
markers only to break the sward, presents a far dif- 
ferent case to that of a lot, bounded by coping, and 
more or less occupied with monuments. Even the 
care of the grass in a lot encumbered by monu- 
ments and markers offers a different question for 
solution, as it would cost more than a clean lawn. 
This is stated simply to suggest that all details 
of the question must be carefully noted and am- 
ple provision for contingencies alio wed. 
On the question of the perpetual care of the 
stonework in a lot, it strikes one from careful 
thought all around the matter, that this must be the 
care of the lot owner, who by endowment or other 
permanent arrangement with the cemetery manage- 
ment, must make sufficient provision for the perpet- 
ual maintenance of his memorials. The varying 
conditions and values pertaining to the memorial 
question, makes it one less easy of solution, and 
leaves it an individual rather than a general feature 
of perpetual care. 
Up to the present the percentage of sale value 
of lots funded for perpetual care in our larger ceme- 
teries has ranged between 15 and 25 per cent. This 
has not proved itself a safe guide, and looking to 
the gradual depreciation of the interest bearing value 
of money, and more serious still, the variable prices 
charged for lots, it offers no general basis for the 
just computation of a perpetual care tax. A broad 
and liberal consideration of the local conditions 
and possibilities will lead to conclusions of far more 
permanent value than the assumption of a percen- 
tage practiced elsewhere and arbitrarily established 
upon questionable premises. 
For the care of the lots in the older cemeteries, 
for which provision must be made by their owners, 
forms have been adopted, of which the following 
are samples, and which appear to cover the essen- 
tials in a legal and concise way: 
FORM OF BEQUEST. 
I give and bequeath to * * * Cemetery, of the 
City * * * , the sum of dollars \or other property , 
real or personal — describing if\, upon trust, however, to apply 
the income arising therefrom, under the direction of the Direc- 
tors, to the repair, preservation or renewal of any tomb, monu^ 
ment or otherstructure, and the planting and cultivating of trees, 
shrubs, flowers and plants, in or around lot number in 
Section in the Cemetery grounds of the said Association; 
and to apply the surplus thereof, if any, to the improvement and 
embellishment of the said grounds. 
FORM OF RECEIPT 
given by cemetery where parties leave money for 
the care ol their lot, either before or after death: 
The * * * Cemetery hereby acknowledges the receipt of 
dollars, from and agrees to invest the same on 
bond and mortgage, or other interest bearing securities, as the 
Directors of said Cemetery shall in their discretion deem to be 
best for that purpose, and to apply the income arising therefrom 
to the repair, preservation or renewal of any tomb, monument, 
or other structure, and the planting and cultivating of trees, 
shrubs, flowers or plants, in and around lot number in 
Section in the Cemetery grounds of the said Association, 
and to apply the surplus of such income, if any, to the improve- 
ment and embellishment of the said grounds. 
In witness thereof, the said, * * * Cemetery, 
has caused this receipt to be signed by its Com- 
troller and the common seal of the said Asso- 
ciation to be affixed hereto, the day 
of A. D. 18 
Comptroller. 
