4 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
SWAN POINT CEMETERY, 
Providence, Rhode Island, is happy in possessing 
a cemetery which is the recipient of much tasteful 
attention. Swan Point’s good qualities are not neces- 
sarily its most conspicuous ; one has rather to search 
to find why it pleases him. He discovers its site well 
chosen, its natural features simple but full of charm, 
its horticulture inconspicuous but developed tasteful- 
ly. He enthuses unconsciously over a seeming rem- 
nant of nature’s handiwork and the result of a plant- 
of a single strong feature, which presides and pre- 
dominates over the whole. Details in planting, though 
beautiful, are insignificant in comparison. It is not 
the finding alone of a rare bit of scenery to which 
credit is to be given, but its retention and develop- 
ment as a part of the cemetery. In that sense it is 
the product of man’s thought. Other cemeteries 
cannot have its woods and river, but there are other 
features which may occupy the same relation. The 
genius of the place can be discovered and developed. 
THE ENTRANCE. 
er’s skill. Yet it is all a case of thoughtful develop- 
ment and a practical example of good sense and taste 
applied to an everyday problem. 
To see Swan Point best one should pay his visit 
in the morning of a bright sunny day, before the 
dews are off and the mists dissolved. The highl- 
lights of the foliage and the deep shadows must still 
be allowed to play. One enters Swan Point’s forty 
acres from a beautiful country road shadowed by 
overhanging trees. He finds himself on a shelving 
bluff, below which through a screen of woods is the 
quiet flow of the Seekonk River. Through the cem- 
etery are many scattered trees and interesting plant- 
ing, but the glory of the place is the descent, broken 
by ravines and covered with the same woods which 
make all New England beautiful. Along the shore 
below is a drive. Across the shifting lights of the 
river one sees nature seemingly but little changed. 
Above are the ravines, the overhanging woods, the 
steep slope and the dark stems of the trees. The 
calm and quiet of the place is of that stillness which 
satisfies our imagination as a fitting place of repose. 
When our time comes for rest, we should lie the 
more peacefully for this nearness to Nature’s quiet- 
ness. Swan Point without the Drive would not be 
Swan Point. One pays this tribute to Nature’s 
charm unconsciously, perhaps, yet it is instinctive. 
No display of monumental art, no studied grace in 
gardening can stand by that one strong feature which 
predominates the whole cemetery and gives the dead 
to the care of protecting nature. 
The chief lesson of Swan Point is the development 
to reveal and adorn which is the one object of land- 
scape art. 
Passing to the cemetery proper, a minute exami- 
nation of its detail may interest us. The road from 
which we entered and the river are the principal 
boundaries. The others are mere short boundaries. 
A B.ACKGKOUND OF RHODODENDRONS. 
one of them a striking wall of boulders. Omitting 
the woods, the ravines and the river. Swan Point is 
in the large like other cemeteries, a collection of trees 
and monuments and with roads convenient but not 
wholly attractive in line. It does again, however, 
