2i6 
PARK AND CEMETERY, 
ment, yet his grave is never lost. How often we see the men 
we know the least of in life, the man who has done the least for 
his fellow man, have the greatest shaft. 
When a burial ground becomes a stone yard, as is the ten- 
dency today, it is time for the superintendent to suggest the 
opposite rather than encourage it. I only ask our brother to 
examine the two views. No. i is Graceland wiih its beautiful 
trees and shrubs, the other a tombstone yard. The quiet of 
the one is far more suggestive as “a last resting place;” an 
earthquake would bury you so deep under stone work in the 
other that the sound of Gabriel’s trumpet would never reach you . 
The park i? much to be preferred to the stone yard. 
The eminent judge who gives his opinion without knowing 
PLATE I. 
Monuments in Cemeteries. 
Kan.sa.s City, Mo., Nov. 9, 1900. 
Editor Park ard Cemetery; 
Dear Sir, — I n your valuable paper. Park and Ceme- 
tery AND I.ANDSCAi’E G.ARDENINC. of October on page 191, 
our worthy Brother Bellett Lawson seems to have misunder- 
stood some of the proceedings 
publication an erroneous 
idea of the work of our con- 
vention. He will find that 
there was no suggestion of 
the use of a tree for a 
marker, which would mem 
to plant ten trees on an ordi- 
nary 20 ft. by 20 ft. lot. 
I do remember that a 
tree was suggested for a 
monument — but all know 
that an elm with its branches 
extending 20 feet to 40 feet 
each side would not be 
planted as a marker at the 
head of a grave, or as a mon- 
ument on a 10 ft. by 10 ft. 
lot or a 20 ft. by 20 ft. lot — 
but the man who saves I500 
to |5,oooon a monument can 
own ground enough to have 
the elm instead of the stone. 
Mr. Scorgie of Boston 
of the meeting and given out for 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
PLATE 2. 
gave us some idea of the durability of a monument and the 
jjrobable cost to keep it in repair. By his figures the tree 
would be far less expensive. 
There is no cemetery in the country where this idea is put 
into effect more than in the “beautiful Graceland cemetery” 
he refers to; fewer monuments are to be found to the acre in 
the new section than in any other cemetery I have visited, and 
more ornamental trees and shrubs exist than in any cemeterr 
I know of. People are gradually learning that a cold gray 
stone erected on the family lot will not help to make those who 
lie there more famous or their rest easier, and more often the 
man with the greatest honor has the most insignificant monu- 
what agreements are stipu- 
lated in the deed throws lit- 
tle weight on the case. Most 
of us realize and know that 
we will not be able to edu- 
cate all to our ideas, but each 
one educated helps tolessen 
the stones in the stone-yard. 
“Pride of the living’’ 
erects more monuments in 
our cemeteries than are 
erected through love of the 
dead. As Brother Lawson 
told us the monument he 
erected in Canada was so 
much nicer than the others 
that the people became jeal- 
ous. What this jealousy will 
do will be seen in future 
years when others will try 
to outdo his efforts. So it goes 
on and the landscape idea is 
lost and great piles of stones transform the cemetery that was 
once beautiful into a hideous stoneyard with stiff straight lines 
on every side and the line of beauty so gracefully illustrated 
in most of our trees and shrubs is obliterated from view. 
If Brother Lawson wishes to encourage the stone work in 
his cemetery its future will be a stone yard long before the 
beautiful Graceland will be marred by such relics of the past 
age. It is not one shaft in the landscape or one vault at the 
end of a vista that destroys the beauty of a cemetery, but the 
many thousand that will clog up that vista that will surely 
.spoil the be.-utiful picture as we see it today. 
Sid. J. Hare. 
