PARK AND CCMCTERY. 
371 
iam Stone, the superintendent, has bestowed much 
attention are thus described by himself; 
“I have three rockeries or rock gardens. The 
rocks or boulders, some of them weighing many 
tons, I have left undisturbed, except in making the 
paths, which only affected the smaller ones. Other- 
wise they remain as nature left them. How long 
ago they were placed one on the other, as many 
are, I do not know, and how it was done I have not 
attempted to study. I have had it explained to me 
several times by persons who did know, but after 
they were through I did not feel any better enlight- 
ened. Suffice it to say they are there, a sublime 
example of the handiwork of nature. In my attempt 
to beautify them I have brought from the adjoining 
woods hundreds of ferns and have also set many va- 
rieties of begonias and grasses, with Cannas and 
Caladiums here and there, together with some of 
our native plants, also from the woods. 
I have made ponds with fountains and have 
furnished them with fish. The ponds are not large, 
of course. To add to their attractiveness I have 
provided rustic seats in suitable situations, so that 
if one will walk in out of the sun and occupy one 
of these seats, listening to the water as it falls back 
in the pond, mingling its pleasant music with the 
song of the birds in the trees overhead; and if one 
can then turn his gaze upward and look through the 
branches, which have for their background the blue 
sky above, and be not inspired with the wonders of 
nature, he is entirely out of place in these beauty 
spots and should be banished to— I don’t know 
where.” 
Village Improvement. 
Suggestions on village improvement and the ad- 
vocacy of Village Improvement Societies have re- 
ceived considerable attention in these columns from 
time to time. The success which has attended the 
efforts of such organizations, whether composed of 
women alone or bodies comprising both sexes, has 
been so marked where properly directed, that there 
would hardly seem any need to emphasize the pro- 
priety of their existence. 
There are, certainly, very few small towns or 
villages in the whole country where concerted action 
of certain of its citizens, directed towards the im- 
provement or beautifying of the place would not 
find plenty to do. Cleaning up objectionable locali- 
ties, planting trees and shrubs — the trees along the 
thoroughfares, shrubs and trees in the bare and ex- 
posed spots at street intersections and elsewhere; 
perhaps a fountain in some neglected spot, and 
many features which a careful survey of the situa- 
tion would suggest to those desirous of seeing their 
little town or village a beauty spot and the pride of 
the community. 
Then there may be the village park or square 
and there certainly must be the cemetery, both of 
which offer abundant opportunity for the exercise 
of taste and energy, and like the rest of the work 
will return a hundred-fold for the labor expended. 
There is scarcely a limit to the field of village im- 
provement and embellishment, for as the age ad- 
vances and our civilization assumes higher forms 
and presents more elaborate requirements so must 
the work of the village improvement society pro- 
ceed with it. 
Ideas spread so rapidly nowadays; no sooner 
does a suggestion become established as a matter 
of value to the country, and hence to the commun- 
ity, than on every hand there springs up a senti- 
ment favoring it. This at the present time seems 
to be the case in regard to arboriculture, and we 
note a suggestion that as trees are invaluable to hu- 
manity in so many ways, not the least in their availa- 
bility for both use and ornament in our towns and 
villages, that our Village Improvement Societies 
