PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND L 
PUBLISHED 
R. J. HAIGHT, President 
A N D S C 
BY ALLIED 
APE GARDENING 
ARTS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
H. C. WHITAKER, Vice-President and General Manager 
O. H. SAMPLE, Secretary-Treasurer 
SUBSCRIPTION TERAIS: United States and Possessions , Mexico and Cuba, one year, $2.00; two years , $3.50: three years , $5.00; five years, $8.00. Canada and other 
$2.50 a year. Single copies, 25 cents. Published on the 15th of the month. Copy for advertisements and reading matter should reach us by the first of the month. 
MAY, 1914 
EDITORIAL 
VOL. XXIV No. 3 
“Breaking Into The Cemetery Business” 
Park and Cemetery recently received a telegram from a West- 
i ern land development company reading as follows : “For our 
benefit, in platting our new cemetery, will you kindly wire by night 
letter, at our expense, the per cent of the different size lots you 
would recommend us to plat.” Having had no previous experi- 
( ence in laying out cemeteries by wire, we were naturally some- 
| what diffident about devoting the necessary few moments of a 
busy day to specifying the layout of a cemetery of which we 
i knew nothing except what is revealed in the above message. Con- 
sequently we refrained from sending the night letter requested, 
and hope that the twelve hours’ wait did not cause any undue 
i delay in disposing of the interments that seemed to be awaiting 
the opening of this new burial ground. Perhaps we were unduly 
deliberate in waiting till the next day and writing an ordinary 
letter under a two-cent stamp to the following effect : “It was 
not possible for us to give you any advice by wire that would 
be of use to you, so we did not reply by night letter. We are 
going to try to get some practical advice on this subject for you 
[ from experienced cemetery men, but it is very hard to tell you 
| anything that would be of help to you, as local conditions, the 
; size of your grounds and many other individual factors have to 
be taken into consideration in studying every proposition from an 
individual aspect. The first thing for you to do when laying out 
a new cemetery should be to secure the services of an experienced 
j landscape architect who has made a specialty of cemetery work. 
You ought by all means to have expert service in planning and 
laying out your grounds, and you should not think of starting 
a cemetery unless you have some assistance of this character.” 
Almost before the ink had become dry on this advice came a 
letter from an attorney-real estate agent in the East, reading: 
j “Can you give me an idea as to the number of lots that could 
be sold from a twenty-acre tract which I have under considera- 
tion for a cemetery and at about what price per lot? I have an 
i option on a good location which can be bought for $250 an acre. 
! My object in taking this matter up is to make some money, and 
! would like some general information before going into the project.” 
More conservative than his Western brother, this gentleman 
does not wish his platting done by wire; and is modest enough 
to think that he “would like some general information before 
going into the project.” 
Within a few days of these communications came another let- 
ter reading as follows: “Have you any record and is there any 
record obtainable of the number of cemetery companies organized 
as a stock proposition, and if so, have you any data as to the 
capital stock of such companies, the length of time they have 
been in existence, the value of stock, and the dividends they have 
paid if any?” 
From all of which it is inferred that there is a strong tendency 
among real estate operators, promoters, investment brokers and 
other business men who deal with land and investments to “break 
into the cemetery business,” over night and without experience. 
To these inquirers and to others who are inclined to figure that 
the difference between the price of farm land by the acre and 
cemetery lots by the square foot is all profit, we should offer the 
general advice that the development of a cemetery is a highly 
specialized business, demanding years of experience and technical 
training. It is necessary to get not only a little “general infor- 
mation,” but a lot of expert advice and technical service. The 
first thing to determine is, of course, the need for a cemetery, 
and the next is the ability to develop the best possible under the 
local conditions present. The selection of the land, the planning 
and platting of the ground, should be studied by a cemetery land- 
scape architect of long experience, and the grounds developed 
and managed by a trained cemetery executive. In general, our 
advice would be, do not break into the cemetery business over 
night and do not do your platting by wire. A cemetery man of 
long training and good judgment, to whom we submitted one 
of the above queries, puts the matter very forcibly as follows : 
“The sending in of inquiries of this kind, constantly repeated from 
all parts of the country, and evidencing such absolute lack of any 
technical knowledge regarding the cemetery, either as to building 
or operating them, is astonishing. There seems to be a feeling 
widespread that any person without any previous experience is 
entirely competent to build and operate a cemetery. The plan- 
ning, building and operating of a modern cemetery is a highly 
specialized profession and it requires brains, training and ex- 
perience, and yet we see good business men putting many thou- 
sands of dollars in a proposition of this kind, making mistakes 
which can never be rectified, oftentimes destroying much of the 
natural beauty of the grounds, and invariably failing to take even 
reasonable advantage of the possibilities of the tract, invariably 
wasting much money, simply by failing to employ some one who 
knows the business. This same man, if investing a tithe of the 
money in any manufacturing or merchandising proposition, would 
consider it insanity, if inexperienced himself, not to employ expert 
and experienced managers. The writer would strongly urge 
upon your correspondent to employ some cemetery man who 
knows, and feels very certain, in view of the expensive blunders 
being made everywhere by the amateur, that the salary of such 
a man would be more than saved by economy in development 
work, while the ultimate results would be vastly better.” 
Editorial Notes 
Western yellow pine cones, to the amount of 6,377 bushels, ob- 
tained on the Bitterroot national forest, Montana, yielded 9,482 
pounds of seed. The average cost of the extracted seed was 41 
cents per pound. 
California state inspectors at San Francisco have found a new 
canker disease on chestnut trees recently imported from Japan. 
According to Dr. Haven Metcalf, the government’s expert on 
; such diseases, this appears to be of the same type as the chestnut 
blight which is ravaging the forests of the eastern United States, 
and it is possible that the new disease would be equally as de- 
structive if it became established in this country. 
The Department of Agriculture is trying to eliminate the danger 
to cattle from poisonous plants on national forest ranges. Of 
these plants, larkspur, loco weed, death camas and water hemlock 
are the most poisonous. Larkspur does the most harm, because it 
is so widely distributed and is particularly bad for cattle. Or- 
dinarily, horses will not eat larkspur, and sheep can eat it without 
apparent injury. 
