PARK AND CEMETERY. 
55 
whether such men operate in the evergreen parts 
of the earth or where the trees lose their leaves. 
They know, or ought to know, the commercial 
plants of the world since apprenticeship. If they 
don’t, they have no business to touch landscape 
work either in a cemetery or anywhere. I have 
dwelt upon this first choice of a man to plant a 
cemetery at some length, because the whole future 
of the spot of ground may be made by a competent 
man, or marred by a pretender. 
Once laid out and planted, a cemetery should 
be placed in the care of a good garden laborer, but 
any vacancies which occur, any thinning of the 
planting, any alterations, should be submitted to 
the designer. This will be imperative where special 
effects are aimed at. There is a wide difference 
between the knowledge of men who call themselves 
gardeners. It is a wonderfully comprehensive 
term, and has been from the earliest historical 
times. 
It will entirely depend upon the wealth and 
taste of a community how much or how little they 
will do. The work is not necessarily expensive. A 
“wild garden” cemetery would need but little other 
than the periodical weeding of the walks or road. 
An evergreen cemetery would require the greatest 
first outlay in plants, but would afterwards be 
economical, and always interesting and beautiful — 
and in certain sections of the country pre-eminently 
so on decoration day. A botanical cemetery would 
be as elastic as any; it might be planted with plants 
which would care for themselves, or it might require 
the constant care of a highly paid superintendent 
and staff. I think for the ordinary type of rural 
burial ground — the margin should be reserved for 
whatever type of decoration is used, and the cen- 
tral plots used for interments — within the garden 
belt. 
A rural cemetery should allow as much liberty 
to lot owners as possible, consistent with propriety, 
and the garden or ornamental features enclosing 
and surrounding should be a distinct feature. The 
individual taste in epitaphs, monuments and em- 
bellishments are most interesting at times, but they 
are entirely distinct in character, and commonly 
opposed in the most diametrical manner to the 
harmony, simplicity, continuity and beauty of any 
species of educational or decorative planting. 
I have remarked that land maybe acquired in a 
variety of ways. A wealthy citizen may donate it 
to a village, and a memorial entrance may appro- 
priately be erected. The boundary fence may be 
of any suitable material. The total expense may 
be great or small. In any case a percentage of the 
proceeds from lot sales should be set apart for 
necessary maintenance, and the whole community 
should be made trustees through some form of 
committee. 
Organization may be effected through a com- 
pany, funds subscribed, lands purchased and divi- 
dends shared in the ordinary manner. In any 
event the village should always acquire the property 
after its abandonment, for public uses. It has 
commonly been paid for by the people, and it 
should revert to them in perpetuity. Whenever a 
community can do so, they should acquire their 
cemetery grounds from the beginning. There is 
nothing that I can think of which can more appro- 
priately be held as public property than a cemetery, 
nothing more essential, nothing that can appeal 
more to civic pride, nothing that can be made more 
beautiful and instructive for less cost to the in- 
dividual citizens. Magnolia. 
In the course of a communication to the Boston 
Transcript relative to the cutting out of so many 
of the trees in Franklin Park, Mr. James H. Bow- 
ditch says: The first ethics of landscape work is to 
preserve existent beauty; where there is any. De- 
struction and change are alike to be avoided, or at 
least not to be resorted to except where special con- 
ditions plainly demand it. Our very reasonable 
contention, therefore, may be plainly stated, viz: 
That no large body of citizens is asking for or is 
even desirous that these large trees should be cut 
down. Why then should they be cut? They are 
from their very size objects of interest, and the facts 
that they are past their prime or are not well 
placed need not condemn them. Some of the finest 
and most famous landscape paintings represent old 
trees in various stages of picturesque decay, and I 
defy any one to find an old tree that does not from 
some point of view afford interest and pleasure to 
the beholder. If is urged that the intention of the 
park authorities is to create a finer picture twenty, 
fifty or a hundred years hence, it is quite pertinent 
for us to reply that there are plenty of such pictures 
of their recent production coming along to fill this 
demand and that we deem it a mistake to paint out 
a good canvas that we can look at for the time be- 
ing. Let it not be here inferred, however, that the 
writer and others are opposed to all cutting of large 
trees. There are often cases where judicious work 
of this description is imperative to subserve certain 
useful ends, and where the immediate gain is evi- 
dent, but the axe should be always used sparingly 
among old plantations. It is even cheerfully con- 
ceded that the trees recently cut were wisely re- 
moved, looking only to the material gain from a 
strict forestry standpoint, but this benefit was in 
many instances attained at the expense of present 
good looks, feeling and sound judgment. 
