100 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ASKED AND ANSWERED 
An exchange of experience on practical matters by our readers. You 
are invited to contribute questions and answers to this department 
Automobiles in Cemeteries. 
Editor Asked and Answered Dept. : 1 he 
members of the Board of Directors of our 
cemeterj', in whose behalf I write you as 
their president, have beautiful and exten- 
sive grounds lying on the upland over- 
looking our town, and have heretofore 
adopted the policy of excluding access to 
the grounds of all automobiles, so as to 
avoid all joy-riding, likely to result in run- 
aways and injuries to the grounds and 
improvements, but lately a pressure has 
been upon us to open the grounds to au- 
tomobiles. We fear to do so. Our mem- 
bers receive regularly your valuable Park 
and Cemetery, but have not observed in 
it anything relating to the subject, with 
the rules and regulations or action of other 
cemetery companies relating to the mat- 
ter. If you have made any publication 
upon the subject, or know of any such 
action by other cemeteries, it would be a 
favor to us for you to call our attention 
to them. — B. C., Pa. 
Park and Cemetery of October, 1911, 
had a discussion on the question of ex- 
cluding automobiles, which was raised by 
another inquiry. The general opinion 
among cemetery people connected with 
large cemeteries of the city is that auto- 
mobiles must be admitted. They are sub- 
ject, of course, to the same traffic regula- 
tions and police control as other vehicles 
and the larger cemeteries do not find them 
troublesome. In some cases, in smaller 
grounds or in hilly grounds, with small 
roads, where there is not room for them 
to get around the road without danger to 
pedestrians, it has been found necessary 
to exclude them. We believe you will 
find some heln in reading the matter we 
are referring to you in another issue. 
The following rules governing the ad- 
mission of automobiles to Spring Grove 
Cemetery, Cincinnati, may al=o be sug- 
gestive to you of the restrictions necessary 
in handling automobile traffic in the cem- 
etery : 
An aatomobile belonging to the owner of a lot 
or grave in the cemetery and carrying the owner 
or some member of his family, may be admitted 
to the cemetery, subject to the observance of the 
following rules: 
1. Speed must not exceed ten miles an hour. 
2. The machine must be so driven that no audi- 
ble signal will be necessary. 
The machine must not pass a funeral cortege 
proceeding in the same direction, or at a point 
where a burial is in progress. 
4. When attendng a funeral automobiles must be 
kept in the rear of vehicles drawn by horses. 
5. The driver of an automobile must carefully 
heed and obey all warnings and signals. 
G. Should horses become frightened by an auto- 
mobile the driver of the machine must stop and 
render any necessary assistance. 
7. Machines must always keep to the right of the 
road. 
8. On entering or leaving the cemetery the hold- 
er of an automobile ticket must show it to the 
gatekeeper when asked, and the ticket must be 
shown to the officer on the grounds whenever de- 
sired. 
9. Automobiles must always be so driven as not 
to give off smoke or to drop oil; .nor shall muf- 
flers be opened while within the cemeterj’. 
10. When the machine stops the engine shall be 
stopped. 
11. Automobiles shall not be turned on the ave- 
nues. 
12. Automobiles will be admitted on Sundays 
between the hours of S A. M. and 2 P. M. ; and 
on Decoration Day between 2 and 5 P. M. 
13. Any violation of the rules shall entail the 
cancellation of this ticket. 
14. This ticket is not transferable, and good only 
to January 1 
Legal Status of Cemetery Border Plant- 
ing. 
I am sorry to confess that I have failed 
to file and preserve Park and Cemetery 
for the last twenty years, and I am in 
need of some information contained in 
numbers of some three to five years ago — 
some court decisions in reference to cem- 
eteries maintaining shrubs and trees 
planted along dividing lines of other prop- 
erty or public streets or alleys, where con- 
trary private property owners or other dis- 
interested citizens brought suit against a 
cemetery company, demanding the re- 
moval of certain trees, shrubs or hedges 
on the line of the cemetery grounds, 
planted for the purpose of screens, and 
improving the landscape inside the grounds. 
The court held for the cemetery com- 
pany and in the decision said some force- 
ful things about people who wished to de- 
face the last resting place of the dead. 
Our cemetery company is up against just 
such a proposition and our town board 
has ordered us to remove a hedge planted 
four feet inside our line. The decision, 
as I remember reading it at the time in 
Park and Cemetery, covered just such a 
case, and I am desirous of procuring the 
number containing it. Will pay all charges 
and be under lasting obligations if you 
will send me the number. I do not re- 
member, but think it has been within the 
last five years. — W. S. M., Mich. 
f Editor’s Note. — We are unable to lo- 
cate in our files the decision referred to 
above. If any of our readers can refer 
us to it they would greatly favor Park 
and Cemetery and the inquirer.] 
Cultivating Sod. 
I am desirous of setting apart a certain 
portion of our cemetery grounds for the 
purpose of cultivating sod. to be taken up 
at various times for sodding graves, etc., 
etc., and I have an indistinct recollection 
of reading some years ago in Park and 
Cemetery the method by which good sod 
could be obtained from the soil by proper 
treatment. In our country we have so far 
been able to cut the sod from the wood- 
lands hereabouts, but it is now becoming 
scarce, besides requiring long haulage. If 
you can put me in the way of getting the 
information I require I shall greatly ap- 
preciate your kindness. — I. J., Pa, 
If possible, select a piece of ground free 
from stone, reasonably level and having 
a deep soil. Cultivate thoroughly by plow- 
ing deeply and harrowing until the ground 
is well pulverized. It would be well to 
use a sub-soil plow. The surface might 
be evened off with a board drag. On 
the surface thus prepared, sow equal parts 
of Kentucky blue grass and red top, se- 
lecting good seed and using a total of 65 
pounds to the acre. The seed should be 
sown on a quiet day, raked in lightly and 
rolled. Seeding in this latitude should be 
done in April or between the first and fif- 
teenth of September. For the purpose 
named, nothing will be gained by seeding 
in July or August. It would be better to 
spend this time in summer fallowing the 
land so as to have it in good condition 
and free from weeds at seeding time. The 
grass can be cut with a lawn mower as 
soon as it is three or four inches high. 
There should be a sod fit for cutting a 
year after seeding. Sod should be cut thin, 
and the bared surface left after the re- 
moval of the sod can be raked and seeded 
again. The roots remaining in the ground 
will also sprout and augment the growth 
of new sod, which can be removed at the 
end of another year. In this way, with a 
good depth of soil, a series of sods can 
be removed during a series of years. It 
would be well to add fertilizer at each 
reseeding, using well-rotted manure, bone 
meal, wood ashes or lime. Experiments 
might be made with different fertilizers to 
ascertain which has the best effect on the 
soil used, O. C. Simonds. 
Chicago. 
We have had some experience in culti- 
vating sod, and regret to say owing to 
our recent dry seasons it has not been 
very satisfactory. Our plan for sod gar- 
dens is as follows : In the spring we 
plow the ground, keep it harrowed and 
cultivated during the spring and early 
summer to kill the weeds and witch grass. 
Early in August we go over it very care- 
fully, shaking out all weeds and witch 
grass roots, give a heavy dressing of 
stable manure and seed with our regular 
lawn grass seed mixture. The mixture is 
composed largely of Kentucky blue grass, 
red top and Rhode Island bent, and is 
made up of the best clean seed we can 
buy. The proper cultivation of a sod gar- 
den requires a great deal of time and at- 
tention, and as we make it a point to use 
seed instead of sod wherever possible, we 
get along with comparatively little sod. 
We cannot, however, get along without 
more or less sod, and a sod garden is' an 
important feature in any cemetery. 
Henry S. Adams, 
Supt. Forest Hills. 
Jamaica Plain, Mass. 
