420 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
setigera, and that it contributed pollen for his vari- 
ety. The habit of many of them, very strongly 
points to the assumption. If this be so, it is not 
surprising to find their progeny developing traits of 
considerable hardihood, for the prairie rose ranges 
from Ontario to Florida, and west to Nebraska. 
Aglaia or yellow rambler is being disseminated 
by Jackson & Perkins, and may be supplied by any 
of the firms advertising in our columns. 
y. M. p. 
Notes from the Dog=Eared Book of a Traveler 
and Observer. 
In the south of Wales, in the eighteenth century, 
white marble stones for graveyards were a rarity, 
though the custom of making both the head and 
the foot of a grave was in vogue. It was the in- 
variable custom of the people to whitewash these 
grave stones for the three great religious festivals 
of the year, Christmas, Easter and Whitesuntide. 
» * ’i' 
In the burial ground of the Abbey at Dunblane, 
Scotland, fully one-fourth of the tombstones erected 
between one and two centuries ago, are marked in 
low relief, with the symbols of trade of the respec- 
tive occupants of the graves. Thus a sugar cane in- 
dicates the burial place of a grocer, an ax, saw, 
hammer and nails indicate the grave of a carpenter, 
an awl and a hammer that of a shoemaker. Such 
representations are likewise found in other parts of 
Scotland upon tombs of like antiquity. 
# iff «• 
The custom of making places of sepulture with 
stone inscribed with epitaphs is so ancient as to 
have been mentioned by Cicero. Probably the 
earliest form, after the resort to earth burial was a 
simple slab laid upon the grave. And this form has 
been preserved among the Moravians of Bethlehem, 
Pennsylvania. In the “God’s Acre” connected with 
their church the graves are in straight lines and each 
marked by a white slab about eighteen inches 
square, bearing a simple inscription of name, date 
and age, laid flat upon the mound. The yard is 
kept in perfect order and the effect is one of repose, 
though looking down from the belfry of the old 
church, the white squares are very suggestive of 
laundered napkins bleaching upon a lawn. Some 
years ago a new cemetery was opened for the Beth- 
lehemites, upon a picturesque bluff overlooking the 
Lehigh river. There, startling innovations upon 
the old Moravian customs were introduced in the 
form of pretentious monuments for families or for 
individuals. 
* * * 
The Shakers use an upright slab at the head of 
each grave with the simple initials and a date. And 
their cemeteries are laid out with the same perfec- 
tion of regularity that characterizes anything that 
belongs to them, though there are no paths nor is 
there the slightest effort made to beautify the place. 
The Harmonites of Harmony, Ohio, who are relig- 
ious economists, (or economic religionists) maintain 
the custom of leveling, turfing and rolling the grave 
of the dead, immediately after interment, to express 
their idea of death as the great leveller. They sink 
the identity of their dead in the great mass of those 
who have departed out of this world. Their ceme- 
tery is an apple and pear orchard. Thrifty people 
are the Harmonites! So indeed are all who resort 
to the community mode of life. 
* * * 
Epitaphs, whatever other purpose they may 
have served since they first began to embellish the 
tombs of the dead, have certainly “given variety to 
our thoughts in passing. And there are few note 
books which have been carried far and industriously 
used, that do not contain epitaphs galore. Most 
of them note the “praevit” — he is gone before, — 
on a stone in the ante-chapel of St. John’s College, 
Oxford, over the body of a fellow of that college, 
as the most concise epitaph yet discovered. Most 
of the many contained in the note book here ex- 
cerpted, have a ludicrous effect, almost always the 
result of their naivete. Here is an instance which 
has not been made public before probably. It is 
on the tomb of a highly respected squire in War- 
wickshire, who was, as set forth in the inscription 
which precedes, “Accidently shot by his game- 
keeper.’’ The epitaph “Well done, thou good and 
faithful servant,’’ seems rather ambiguous in such 
close connection, although in strictly scriptural 
language. 
* * * 
Nowhere in the world is to be seen anything like 
the Cypress cemeteries almost surrounding the city 
of Constantinople. The cypresses have attained to 
enormous proportions, and the dark, almost black, 
glossy loliage, is so dense that the sunlight pene- 
trates only in slender beams. The trunks appear 
like innumerable columns supporting this dark ceil- 
ing. Crowded together between these columns are 
the gravestones; huge, grotesque representations of 
the human form crowded with fez or turban, painted 
red or gilded, according to the age of the grave. 
For these stones are intended to repreesnt the occu- 
pants of the graves as they appeared in the flesh, 
each in his characteristic dress. And fashions of 
head dress have changed even among the conserva- 
tive orientals; and there is considerable difference 
between the huge turban of the time of Mahmud 
