182 
PARK and cemetery. 
tain a nursery, and, if so, do you find it 
profitable ?” 
Yes, to both inquiries. Our nursery is 
indispensable. In it we have a general 
assortment of trees, shrubs, vines and 
roses, the kind most popular and appropri- 
ate for our work. We don’t keep a large 
stock of anything, simply enough for our 
own needs. An over-supph' of anything in 
this line is poor buisness, for young plants 
soon get too big, and then they become 
leggy, scroggy and naked at bottom from 
over-crowding in the rows and have to be 
headed down. I dislike old, stumpy, 
headed-back trees or shrubs of any kind, 
far better have small, young, well-rooted 
stock. We buy small plants from the com- 
mercial nurseries and plant them out for 
a year in our home nursery in good ground 
with lots of room, and this gives us ex- 
cellent stock for transplanting to perma- 
nent places in the cemetery — shrubs with 
big, heavy balls of roots, and next year 
they go right ahead growing as if nothing 
had happened. It may be that we keep 
them for two or three years. But always 
prune back your shruljs when transplant- 
ing them ; the same with trees. In the 
case of trees, however, it is not always 
well to cut back the main stem or leader, 
but cut in the side branches. I prune the 
trees and shrubs before we dig them. 
Many kinds of trees won’t lift with large 
balls of earth, but from your own nursery 
you can dig them with extra care and get 
a greater mass of roots than would likely 
be the case from outside nurseries, and, 
too, your home trees would have the ad- 
vantage of never having their roots sun 
dried or wind dried between digging and 
transplanting. 
One of the greatest conveniences of the 
home nursery is that we can go out into 
it and dig up one tree or a dozen trees at 
a time as the occasion ma\' require, for 
immediate planting, but never dig up any 
more at a time than can safely be planted 
that day or hour. 
In the event of big work, such as plant- 
ing rows or belts of trees, where many are 
required, I never hesitate to buy whatever 
stock we need for planting directly from 
the commercial nurseries, distinctly speci- 
fying the quality of stock we want, and 
we always get satisfactory treatment. But 
if you beat down prices you can expect 
only beaten down trees, and planting rub- 
bish of this sort is throwing money into 
the fire. 
Some people make a point of raising 
their own young stock from seed, cuttings, 
layers, grafts, etc., but I have enough to 
do without bothering much in this direc- 
tion. One of the evils of this propagation 
is over-production; we raise far more 
plants than we need ; then we have the 
care and labor of transplanting and re- 
transplanting in the nursery rows, with the 
ultimate evils of over-crowding, and naked 
bottoms, and heading back; then, after a 
few years, a bonfire. 
To a limited extent raising one’s own 
trees and shrubs is perfectly right in every 
way. 
In the case of ivy, periwinkle, sedum 
and moss pink for graves, of course, we 
have patches of ground devoted to these, 
and we ourselves propagate all of the 
stock required. This is done anew year 
after year. And where perennials such as 
pjeonias, iris and phlox are a consideration, 
these we also propagate and grow to trans- 
planting size. Roses likewise receive our 
attention, more especially where we have 
greenhouse facilities for propagation. All 
of these, together with honeysuckle, clem- 
atis and ampelopsis may be grown in a 
special patch of ground devoted to them- 
selves, more like a garden square than a 
horse-cultivated nursery field. 
Pittsburgh, Pa. Wm. Falconer. 
Small Receiving Vault. 
Editor Park and Cemetery ; I should 
like to get information concerning small 
mausoleums or burial vaults for winter 
storage of bodies. Any information you 
can give us along these lines will be great- 
ly appreciated.— R. P. W., Civil Engineer. 
We presume you refer to receiving 
vaults that are maintained in nearly all 
cemeteries. We have illustrated and de- 
scribed many of these in Park and Cem- 
etery in past issues, but if you want 
information that wall enable you to build 
one, you had better take it up with some- 
one who is practically experienced in the 
construction of these buildings. McDon- 
nell & Sons. 858 Main street, Buffalo, N. 
\ ., are builders of any kind of receiving 
vaults or mausoleums and would no doubt 
be glad to take the matter up with you. 
Burial Shovel. 
Editor Asked and Answered : Can you 
advise us where we can secure an appro- 
priate shovel to be used by ministers at 
time of burial in the sprinkling of dirt 
into the grave? We are subscribers to 
your paper and your advice will be ap- 
preciated.— W. P. Cem. Co. 
You can buy a burial shovel that holds 
earth in the handle and releases it on 
pressure of a spring, from Erickson Bros., 
Lindsborg, Kan. 
Problems of Cemetery Development. 
Editor Asked and Answered : I should 
like to inquire whether you have any back 
numbers of Park and Cemetery in which 
appear articles helpful to one about to 
plan a cemetery. I have a friend who has 
been recently given charge of a small town 
cemetery. Some new land has been ac- 
quired and the gentleman is ambitious to 
make the place something more than a 
mere “burying ground.’’ The situation in 
question isn’t a “problem.” If it were a 
matter of a cemetery in an ordinary sense 
we should know, of course, that consulta- 
tion with landscape architects was the 1 1 
proper course. This, however, is a case of || 
the addition of a few acres of land to a . I 
most ordinary country burying ground. ' 
The man undertaking its charge doesn’t 
even receive any compensation for what 
he will do ; he has, however, a personal 
ambition to make it a little better in “lay- ’ 
out” than the usual scrambled condition | 
of such places ; he will have no funds to ' i 
work with, but thought that he might get J 
some very simple ideas or suggestions that ( 
would aid him. He is more interested in , » 
a suggestion for a name, perhaps, than 
anything else at present, as there seems to 
be nothing about the location that is sug- 
gestive. — C. F. W., Mass. 
The matter that would be of most help t 
to you in your cemetery problem would 
be the series of articles on the complete 
development of a modern cemetery that ; 
ran in Park and Cemetery from January, |i ' 
1915, to October, 1915. We could supply J > 
you all the issues containing this series. 
The first thing you ought to do in de- 
veloping a cemetery should be to get an 
expert report and plan on the proposition 
from a landscape architect who makes a 
specialty of cemetery work. You shouldn’t 
think for a moment of starting the devel- 
opment of a cemetery without such a re- 
port. Your friend not only has a “prob- 
lem,” but he has the most difficult problem ; 
in the cemetery business. We do not know 
of anything harder to accomplish than to 
make something respectable out of an ad- 
dition to an old style graveyard without 
any funds. In fact, his task is practically | ( 
insurmountable. Without funds he could I 
not even make a plan for developing the > 
tract or keep the grounds clean. Your 
friend is evidently a man of considerable 
generosity and public spirit and is willing : 
to give some of his time to this work. In 
this case, our only practical suggestion 
would be that he give as much time as pos- 
sible to raising some funds among the 
citizens of the community for the proper 
development of his cemetery tract. 
Regarding the name of the ground, it 
should be characteristic of the location. 
If, as you say, there is nothing character- 
istic about the location, there must be 
something characteristic about the general 
locality, about the community, or about the 
town, and the best cemetery names are 
those that suggest something of the char- 
acteristics of the surrounding country or 
of the community. It would, of course, not 
be possible to suggest anything unless one 
were familiar with the situation. 
However, if you will take a copy of the 
latest report of the Association of Ameri- 
can Cemetery Superintendents you will 
find a directory of the members of this or- 
ganization and the names of some two 
hundred and fifty cemeteries. You will 
undoubtedly find some of these names that 
will be of suggestive value to you in nam- 
ing your ground. 
