196 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
tilizer. If the loam is poor and hungry, 
work in a good, liberal quantity of well- 
rotted manure. Clean up, regrade and re- 
surface your avenues and paths and pro- 
vide for surface drainage when necessary, 
then seed the whole with such grasses as 
you have found by experiment to be best 
adapted to the specific situation. The cost 
of such work is not great when compared 
with results obtained. 
I am sure that some of you will ask, 
"What will you do with lots in such an 
area for which no care provision has been 
made? My answer is, "Do them just the 
same, because if you don't you will find 
that, left as they are now, they will seri- 
ously interfere not only with the proper 
grading of the whole tract, but if left un- 
cared for they invariably produce weed 
seed that will inoculate those adjoining and 
eventually cause you as much work, or 
more work, than will be found necessary 
to put and keep them in order, in addition 
to the mullification of your efforts to keep 
the others in good order.” 
Then, again, we are not under a moral 
obligation to give a reasonable amount of 
care to any lot sold. Assuming that lots 
are now sold only with a perpetual care 
provision, the entire process of which is 
under our control, and we adjust it by in- 
vesting a certain part of the purchase 
money in interest-bearing securities, the 
income of which bears the expense of the 
care of the particular lot in question, are 
those people who purchased their lots be- 
fore zve made such provision and condi- 
tions in any way to be blamed because 
the care of theirs has not been provided 
for? Would they not have been willing 
and glad to have had us lay aside a part 
of their purchase money for this purpose? 
Would they not have been willing to have 
paid more than they did for their lots if 
the purchase contract had carried with it 
a care provision? I feel sure they would. 
When you sum it all up, the situation as 
I see it is this : 
Relatively a few years ago we learned 
from our experience that we ought to get 
more money for our lots and that we 
ought to lay aside a certain part of it 
for perpetual care. And ever since that 
time we have been trying to induce the 
owners of lots purchased prior to that time 
to endow their lots by the payment of a 
certain amount of money mutually agreed 
upon, varying in volume according to the 
opinion of the officials of the various cem- 
eteries, and in this commendable effort 
we have generally met with success, which 
success in itself proves to my mind that 
they would have made this provision at the 
time of the original purchase, had we 
asked it. Understand me, I would not 
abate this effort in any degree, but we 
still have those with us who cannot now 
make this provision. In many instances 
the family has become extinct; in others, 
reverses have come and they cannot pro- 
cure the money. It is true that in most 
cases they only paid a fraction of the price 
we would now ask for the same lot, but 
they paid all we asked and would have 
paid us more if we had demanded it. 
Hence, if we used bad judgment and made 
a poor bargain for ourselves, I think we 
should take our medicine. 
Let me ask, What will you do with 
these lots ultimately; care for them or 
not? They are on your hands and will 
never be moved away. That they are a 
burden to us and a menace to the welfare 
of our cemeteries and our lot owners, I 
think you will admit. Being a menace, I 
am sure that you will eventually care for 
them. My advice is, do it nozv. The sat- 
isfaction of pleasing those who are too 
poor to pay for it is great, and this is the 
class of people who most frequently visit 
the cemetery and who feel the loss of 
their dead most keenly. We have upon a 
large monument this sentiment, engraved 
upon a polished granite surface, ‘‘The best 
part of the record of every man’s life is 
what he has done for others.” The 
thought thus expressed is one we should 
cultivate and keep before us constantly 
while engaged in our work. Our doing 
for those who cannot do for themselves 
will bring to us our greatest reward. And 
besides, I firmly believe that if we remove 
from our cemeteries every foot of neglect- 
ed, uncared for land we will make them 
so much more attractive than they would 
be if these areas are left undone that we 
will be able to sell our new land for a 
much higher price, so much higher that 
we will make money out of our efforts. 
With advancing years of experience and 
observation I am becoming more and more 
convinced that the most attractive and de- 
sirable cemetery is the one that consists 
largely of well made and well kept lawns, 
avenues, paths and trees, with most, if 
not all, of the ornamental plantings placed 
in the public or administrative areas — 
that is, do not yourself or permit or en- 
courage in your lot owners the planting of 
beds, graves or borders of lots or lot sec- 
tions more than compelled to do. The 
old custom of weeping willows or syringas 
on the lots, with two beds of scarlet 
geraniums in the front border, is a thing 
of the past. 
You will in any section find angles and 
spaces or unsold land into which you 
may properly and effectively plant hardy- 
growths of flowering shrub or herbaceous 
plants, as well as the dwarf and slow- 
growing broad leaf and coniferous ever- 
greens. By all means, however, avoid an 
epidemic of "shrub fever.” Often have we 
been advised to make “judicious plantings 
of flowering shrubs.” I would advise a 
careful attention to the meaning of the 
word “judicious,” to the end that it may 
not be interpreted as meaning "promis- 
cuous.” 
On the deciduous shrub proposition, we 
really have two flowering seasons, spring 
and fall. It is useless in a cemetery to 
try to make more out of it. We have read 
and been told much about the desirable 
effects of foljage all summer, and colored 
bark and fruit effects in winter. These 
are all very well in large group plantings 
in parks, and for some large border plant- 
ings on the boundaries of cemeteries, but 
I do not approve their use in internal cem- 
etery areas, or between or near lots. They 
are overgrown and cumbersome in a very 
few years and provide an attractive place 
for harboring injurious insects as well as 
for the depositing of rubbish of all kinds. 
I like freer use of the spring flowering 
bulbs, especially those that will live on 
and increase and thrive for years. How 
the crocus, scillas, narsissus-von sien, poet- 
icus and trumpets in their several varieties 
do brighten things up, and with so little 
thought and care, and don’t forget the 
hardy lilies. 
THE FRONT COVER ILLUSTRATION. 
The photograph on the front cover of 
this issue, showing a partial view of Bel- 
mont Park, New York City, brings out 
\ ery strikingly the attraction and pro- 
tection added by a good, substantial iron 
fence. This fence is a design made by 
The Stewart Iron Works' Co., Cincinnati, 
Ohio, whose mechanical skill in this di- 
rection is attested in many fine fences 
throughout the country. 
The iron fence in question is 7 feet 6 
inches high and is constructed of %-inch 
square pickets spaced 5 inches on centers. 
Rails are their special heavy patent four- 
rib channel, 2 , / 2 xJ / g inches. Line posts, of 
which there is one at the end of each 
eight-foot panel of fence, are 1*4 inches 
square. The double entrance gates are 
hung to iron posts and are designed and 
constructed, of course, to conform in gen- 
eral specifications and style to the archi- 
tecture of the fence. 
The many reasons why parks should 
have a fence of this character are obvious. 
Park superintendents, commissioners and 
civic improvement associations, however, 
often have a mistaken idea of the cost, 
the prevailing impression being that to 
erect an iron fence and entrance gates to 
a park means a necessary expenditure of 
a large sum of money. Of course, as 
much money can be expended on an im- 
provement of this kind as the park com- 
mission desires, but it is not necessary to 
put up the more expensive class of work. 
A large number of plain yet attractive and 
substantial designs of iron fence, suitable 
for parks, are shown in The Stewart Iron 
Works Co.’s general catalogue and the 
prices are such that the installation of a 
good iron fence is not expensive. This 
is an improvement that means so much to 
the general appearance and proper preser- 
vative of a park that it is much better to 
erect a plain, modern priced iron fence 
than to put off the erection of a fence un- 
til something more costly can be secured. 
