PARK 
AND L 
PUBLISHED 
R. J. HAIGHT, President 
VOL. XXIII 
AND CEMETERY 
ANDSCAPE 
GARDENING 
BY ALLIED ARTS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
H. C. WHITAKER, Viee-President and General Manager 
O. H. SAMPLE, Secretary-Treasurer 
NOVEMBER, 1913 
No. 9 
Attempts At Cemetery Taxation 
New aspects of tbe question of cemetery taxation have recently 
appeared in several states, and attempts to tax cemeteries in 
one way or another are frequently being made. Every cemetery 
organization should keep informed as to the status of public 
opinion on this question and as to the legal aspect of the question, 
especially as to the laws of the state under which it operates. In 
Boston, Judge Crosby, of the Superior Court, recently made a 
finding of $25,153.50 for City Collector Parker in his suit against 
the proprietors of Mt. Auburn Cemetery for a tax assessed upon 
the proprietors of the cemetery for the year 1912. The proprietors 
of the cemetery claimed that the tax in question was assessed upon 
the defendants as owners of certain personal property which they 
claimed was exempt from taxation. The defendants further 
claimed that the corporation was not an inhabitant of the city of 
Boston, nor was it liable to be taxed by the city of Boston upon 
its personal property. On behalf of the city of Boston it was 
claimed that the principal place of business of the corporation was 
in Boston, where the trustees held their meetings and where the 
treasurer had his office, and that, therefore, the domicile of the 
corporation was in Boston. The court took this view of it. Here- 
tofore the cemetery had paid no personal taxes, and will not be 
obliged to pay any hereafter, since the legislature this year has 
exempted all cemeteries from such payments in future in an act 
passed as a result of the .suit of the Town of Milford, which was 
recently reported in these pages. 
The Union Cemetery Association, of Kansas City, has asked for 
an injunction to restrain the city from selling part of the grounds 
of the corporation for taxes. The city treasurer already has ad- 
vertised some of the ground of the association for sale. It is 
alleged in the suit that the city has no right to tax any of the 
property owned by the association because it was incorporated by 
act of the legislature as a cemetery association. A similar injunc- 
tion suit is now pending to prevent the city from collecting last 
year’s taxes. If the verdict favors the cemetery company, it will 
give added strength to the cemetery’s injunction suit to prevent 
the city enforcing an ordinance prohibiting burials there. The 
injunction was denied in the Circuit Court a year ago, but the 
Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case. Representatives 
of twelve organizations in the Borough of Queens, New York, 
whose efforts to get the legislature to tax cemeteries have been 
noted in these pages, at a recent meeting decided to confine their 
work to making an effort to compel the cemetery corporations to 
pay their share of assessments, rather than take in the broader 
field of attempting to force them through legislation to pay taxes. 
As an example of the anti-cemetery feeling in this locality, one of 
the speakers at this meeting is quoted as follows : “Cemeteries 
were originally exempted from taxation because in years gone 
by they were real charitable organizations. But they have now 
developed into nothing but pure money-making propositions. In 
the old days the idea of the cemetery corporation paying dividends 
was never taken into consideration. It is almost beyond concep- 
tion what income some of them yield to stockholders.” It is un- 
fortunate that local conditions such as are prevalent here should 
give such widespread publicity to the erroneous idea that ceme- 
teries generally are profit-making institutions. 
Editorial Notes 
The Toledo, Peoria and Western Railroad Company, an inter- 
urban line connecting a number of Illinois towns, has, it is re- 
ported, been pursuing an enlightened policy of parking its station 
grounds and turning them over to local authorities as public 
parks. Various towns along both divisions of the line have taken 
advantage of the company’s offers and have made small parks out 
of the company’s lands. This is true at Washington, El Paso, 
Fairbury, Watseka and other Illinois towns. While this property 
might have been leased to industries at these places, it would 
have very much marred the landscape, and to avoid this and re- 
tain the favor the citizens have done a great deal. The company 
also maintains a florist, a gardener and a forester to beautify its 
own station grounds, thus avoiding the dirt and filth often found 
near the railroad stations. 
There is a law in Illinois which permits the organization of dis- 
trict park systems without reference to city, village or township 
lines. The officers of such an organization have power to pur- 
chase property and to build roads and drives and do such other 
acts as are necessary for the development and improvement of 
the system. Under this law citizens of Rock Island have proposed 
a comprehensive system which would include the banks of the 
Mississippi and Rock rivers as far east as Watertown on the 
banks of the former and as far as Carbon Cliff on the latter, 
with cross-drives and parks at intervals between. Definite plans 
for the work have not yet been formulated. 
Deputy Sheriff N. P. Tanner, of Shreveport, La., recently had 
the novel experience of taking possession of a cemetery on a writ 
of execution. The writs of seizure were issued for the execution 
of judgment in a suit by the city of Shreveport against the St. 
Joseph Catholic Cemetery Association for the cost of paving, 
amounting to between $1,300 and $1,400. The case was won by 
the city in the District Court. On appeal to the Circuit Court, 
the former judgment was affirmed. The sheriff was ordered to 
make the seizure with a view to collecting the amount of judg- 
ment. 
The largest tree in the United States is said to be the “Mother 
of the Forest,” a giant redwood in the Calaveras big tree grove 
in California. It is supposed to contain 140,619 board feet of 
lumber. There are, however, many claimants for the honor of 
being the “largest tree” and the “oldest tree,” and these claims, 
according to foresters, cannot always be verified. 
David Z. T. Yui, formerly secretary to the Vice-President of 
the Chinese Republic, is now traveling in this country to learn 
modern methods for adoption in China. In speaking of his work, 
Mr. Yui said: “In the matter of forest conservation the United 
States profited much by looking upon the disasters which were 
the result of the Chinese neglect of forestry. This was a great 
warning to you. Now we wish to profit by the improved methods 
of forestry which the United States has discovered and applied.” 
There are about thirty-seven pines native to the United States, 
of which twenty-five are Western species and twelve Eastern. 
Germany is said to have an oversupply of foresters, so that 
well-educated men have hard work to secure even inferior posi- 
tions. 
Squirrels collect much of the seed used for planting by the 
forest service. 
To secure a merit badge in forestry, boy scouts are required, 
among other things, to identify twenty-five kinds of trees. 
