PARK AND CEMETERY. 
12 I 
Such simple pleasures are a boon to the inhab- 
itants of small places were there are no parks for 
the benefit of the public and would undoubtedly be 
appreciated by the better class of the population, 
while exerting a refining influence on all, from the 
mill employees and farmers delivering grain to the 
citizen driving by to show his children the lilies. 
The planting of such a feature should not be 
limited to aquatics. To secure the best effects it 
must include semi-aquatic or bog plants for the 
damp situations along the shores of the pond as 
well as appropriate shrubs and herbaceous material 
in well arranged groups in the vicinity of the water, 
and these should be so ].)]aced that the water scene 
will merge naturally into and blend with the 
neighboring pla»tings whatever their character may 
be. The skillful introduction of water into a lands- 
cape brings with it the charm of life and motion, 
and it carries the thought not downward to its depths, 
but upward to the tree tops, the heights, the clouds, 
reflected on its surfuce. 
Detroit Notes. 
Elmwood Cemetery, Detroit, has a charming 
site with the natural advanteges of good trees, and 
a varied ground surf'ace presenting excellent oppor- 
tunities for the development of fine water views 
that would add greatly to its landscape effects and 
which will probably be taken advantage of in good 
time. Its elaborate catacomb with niches for both 
caskets and ashes, is a novel feature in northern 
cemeteries being, if I do not mistake, the only 
one north of Mason and Dixon’s line. 
* » * 
At Mt. Olivet, the large new Catholic Cemetery 
at Detroit, under the supervision from its inception 
of Mr. John Reid who is also superinendent of Mt. 
Elliott, a great work has already been done and is 
still going on in cutting out heavy timber, preparing 
the surface by cutting and filling, ( fills of five and 
one half feet having been made over large areas), 
road making, drainage, establishing turf and getting 
the most possible good out of the native growth of 
trees, shrubs, vines etc., with which a large part of 
the ground is richly. stocked. 
Mr. Reid is justly proud of the work in general 
and perhaps especially — which is pardonable — of a 
plan of his own for draining the surface of the 
driveways, the novel feature of which consists in 
extra large sized gratings that are curved length- 
wise to dip kom the road bed and from the curb 
line, (there are no curbs in Mt. Olivet, the sward 
coming down everywhere in one of several grace- 
ful, sweeping lines to meet the road bed), but are 
depressed at the back, or sward edge so that when 
heavy rains wash down leaves or other material 
and obstruct the gratings, the water runs out over 
the leaves into an overflow prepared for such emer- 
gencies and so into the basin, just as readily as 
though there was no obstruction. It is an excellent 
scheme and has proved as good in practice as in 
theory. 
A large part of the land comprised in Mt. Olivet 
is heavily wooded and much of it will remain so for 
many year.s, but roads have been laid out through 
the woods, some of which are finished for a part of 
their length. 
One of these, connecting parts of the ground 
already prepared for sale, dips into the woodland 
cutting off an island of native vegetation that is the 
delight of the genial superintendent who is a true 
devotee of natural beauty. This island comprises 
trees of various sizes and shrubbery that comes for- 
ward in irregular bays and promontories on the 
newly made adjoining lawn, the lower branches 
sweeping the turf as they previously swept the 
grassy woodland glade, only with fuller leafage 
from the admittance of sunlight. Just the sort of 
a plantation that every landscape gardener with a 
soul tries to achieve — usually with indifferent suc- 
cess as compared with such a model. Mr. Reid’s 
ironical suggestion that “now all it needs is a nice 
belt of Petunias in front” was a shock almost great 
enough to jar one’s confidence in the theory of 
man’s inherent love of beauty. 
* * * 
Belle Isle Park, that Woodland paradise gene- 
rously bestowed by nature on the clean, prosperous, 
beautiful city of Detroit, seems doomed to lose 
the picturesque stamps applied by the Creator. The 
commonplace features of so-called park decoration 
being introduced there are so out of keeping with 
the spirit and the character of the place as to be 
really distressing. On a glorious driveway en- 
circling the island, a driveway that should disclose 
in turn glimpses into the heart of the woods and of 
the blue waters and splendid commerce of the 
wonderful river sweeping by, distant views of Lake 
St. Clair, and of the city on one side and the Can- 
adian shore on the other, a space has been cleared 
on either side, between the road and the skirting 
woods, through which none of these fair vistas 
have been opened, for enormous beds of gaudy 
annuals — things that arc almost as much injured by 
their environment as they themselves are out of 
place. Such desecration is a marked example of 
misapplied money and energy. 
* ♦ * 
Woodward Lawn Cemetery, Detroit, is now in 
charge of Mr. Frank Eurich, the well known and 
popular secretary of the i\ssociation of Cemetery 
Superintendents. He has had and still has some 
difficult problems to solve there. Pioneer work 
