176 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
THE USE OF SHRUBS IN CEMETERIES.* 
The reports of our meetings show that during 
recent years the subject of shrubbery has been neg- 
lected. In fact, judging from many of the ceme- 
teries which our association has visited, one would 
think that the shrubs themselves were very little 
appreciated. Undoubtedly the removal of fences, 
hedges and railings, and the substitution of grass 
walks for those of other materials, is a movement 
in the right direction, but in confining the features 
of a cemetery to grass, tall trees, roads and monu- 
ments, is there not danger of producing an effect 
of baldness and monotony? We have been in 
some burial places where the whole area included 
within the boundaries could be seen at a glance. 
A multitude of stones would first obtrude them- 
selves on our attention and then the bare trunks of 
trees would fill the view with vertical lines. Some 
low foliage hiding portions of the roadway and at 
least nine-tenths of the monuments would have 
made a wonderful improvement in the appearance 
of the grounds. We come here to learn how to 
make cemeteries beautiful. Nothing will help us 
more than an abundance of good healthy-looking 
A GLIMPSE OF WILLOWMERE, GRACELAND CEMETERY, CHI- 
CAGO. BLUE BEECH (FAGUS) AND MAPLES (aCER) IN 
foreground. 
green leaves. Foliage adds as much to the beauty 
of a landscape as plumage does to the beauty of a 
bird. To make a cemetery attractive and interest- 
*A Paper reai at Cleveland Convention of the Association of American Ceme- 
tery Superintendents, Cleveland, O., September, igoo. By O. C. Simonds. 
ing in appearance, the attention must be confined to 
one object at a time by shutting other objects out 
A BURR OAK, NOT TRIMMED UP, GRACELAND CEMETERY, 
CHICAGO. 
of view. By so doing, the changing of one’s posi- 
tion brings new features into sight. In this way 
we are attracted from one object to another and 
our interest in what we are looking at is main- 
tained. It follows, therefore, that masses of shrub- 
bery covered with foliage reaching from the ground 
to points above the eye are exceedingly useful in 
producing the desired effect. It sometimes hap- 
pens that trees with foliage coming to the ground 
serve the same purpose as masses of shrubs, but in 
too many cases the branches of the trees have been 
cut away. The hiding of certain objects, however, 
is not the most useful purpose served by shrubs. 
They are beautiful in themselves. What is more 
pleasing to the sense of sight and the sense of 
smell than a great mass of lilacs when in bloom? 
How delicate in color and fragrance are the pink 
and white flowers of the Tartarian honeysuckle? 
How graceful the curving branches of some of the 
spiraeas when weighed down with a profusion of 
clusters of white flowers. But 1 think the beauty 
of the various shrubs, although surpassing one’s 
powers of description, yields in importance to the 
part which they serve in making artistic composi- 
tions. They make the most pleasing boundaries 
of lawns, forming a background in one place, carry- 
ing a point of foliage forward in another, so as to 
