PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING 
PUBLISHED BY ALLIED ARTS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
R. J. HAIGHT, President H. C. WHITAKER, Vice-President and General Manager O. H. SAMPLE, Secretary-Treasurer 
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$2.50 a year. Single copies, 25 cents. Published on the 15th of the month. Copy for advertisements and reading matter should reach us by the first of the month. 
MARCH, 1915 
EDITORIAL 
VOL. XXV No. 1 
Locating a New Cemetery 
The necessity for expert study and expert advice in select- 
ing the ground for a new cemetery and in the preparations 
for its development is forcibly presented in our article by 
Messrs. Hare on another page in this issue. The folly of the 
amateur handling of this question as a real estate or specula- 
tive proposition is at once clear when we give careful atten- 
f tion to the many important considerations involved in select- 
ing land for a cemetery. The matter of the underlying soil, 
for example, is a most important factor and might in itself 
cause the success or failure of a cemetery enterprise. The 
proper study of this question would be manifestly impossible 
except by one trained in cemetery development problems. As 
is pointed out in this article, the soil should be suitable for 
the growth of trees, shrubs and other plants and for lawn 
making, a rich loam being ideal. A light sandy soil is prefer- 
able to heavy clay or gravel. The subsoil is also of much im- 
portance because of ease in excavating. It should be suf- 
ficiently solid to prevent caving, yet not so hard as to be 
expensive to handle, or so impervious as to hold water, good 
drainage being highly important, although lack of it is a 
fault that can be remedied without prohibitive cost. Rock is 
very undesirable, because the expense of excavating a grave 
is often more than the greatest possible charge for the serv- 
ice. Moreover, blasting is dangerous to the workers and vis- 
itors in a cemetery; it is apt to damage lawns and monuments, 
and is inconsistent with the peace and quiet of the surround- 
ings. Large boulders may also cause much difficulty. In 
some localities it has been necessary to trench the ground to a 
depth of five or six feet and remove all the large boulders. 
The proper development of a cemetery is the work of many 
years and demands the expenditure of much money and in- 
telligent planning. The many considerations involved in the 
first steps toward the making of a cemetery are admirably set 
forth in this article. 
More About Municipal Forestry 
“I note in your editorial called ‘Possibilities of Municipal 
Forestry,’ in your February number of Park and Cemetery, 
that the Forest Service states there are ninety-seven munic- 
ipal forests in this country. T want to call your attention to 
the fact that this is an error,” writes Harris A. Reynolds, 
secretary of the Massachusetts Forestry Association. “There 
are nine states in this country that have laws permitting towns 
to have such forests, but with one exception there is not a 
Town Forest legally established in this country. That excep- 
tion is the city of Fitchburg, which last December set aside 
one hundred and five acres as a Town Forest. This land is 
not connected with its parks or water supply in any way. 
There are a great many cities in the country that have forests 
on their watersheds or that have started to reforest their 
watersheds, but this is in connection with the protection of 
their water supply, and the land has not been set aside as a 
Town Forest under the laws of the state. I happen to be 
pretty familiar with this subject at present, as I have had 
occasion to correspond with all of the states and a great many 
cities and towns concerning their so-called Town Forests. 
For instance, I have written to all of the places mentioned in 
the bulletin prepared by the Forest Service and in no case do 
these areas represent Town Forests established as such.” The 
Massachusetts Forestry Association has issued an interesting 
bulletin which describes the Town Forest contest promoted by 
this association in order to encourage the establishment of 
such forests in Massachusetts. Fifty acres will be planted to 
three-year-old white pine transplants, 1,200 trees to the acre, 
with a guarantee of 75 per cent for one year, by the Massa- 
chusetts Forestry Association, in the “Town Forest” of the 
city or town in Massachusetts which meets the requirements 
set forth in the Rules of Contest, and obtains the highest 
number of points under conditions expressed in number seven 
of those rules. A city or town wishing to enter the contest 
must have acquired by gift or purchase at least 100 acres of 
land and have set it aside officially as a “Town Forest.” Other 
details of this interesting contest are set forth in the bulletin 
above mentioned and have been previously discussed in these 
pages. 
Wholesale Tree Planting for Arbor Day 
For the past two years the New York State College of 
Forestry at Syracuse has been interesting high schools in the 
planting of one or more thousand trees on Arbor Day in the 
place of the planting of a few shade trees only. That is, the 
college is urging that Arbor Day be made a forest day in 
place of a tree day. The right kind of evergreens or hard- 
woods for planting in different parts of the state may be 
ordered through the college at from $3.50 to $5 per thousand. 
In most instances the college is urging the use of rapid- 
growing evergreens. In every community there is a piece of 
idle land, such as a barren hillside, the owner of which will 
be glad to have it planted up to trees. If the pupils of the 
school or the school will purchase a thousand or two of trees 
and set aside a day or more for their planting, as may be 
needed, the college will send one of its foresters out at no 
expense to supervise the planting. This is done because the 
college feels that if the boys of the state help in the planting 
of a forest, the forest fire question will be very largely set- 
tled. No boy who has helped plant a thousand trees and has 
watched them grow will go into the woods and leave a camp 
fire or throw down a burning match. If some of the $85,000, 
which is used annually for the protection of the Adirondacks 
from fire could be used in interesting schools in planting, there 
would be annually less necessity for the expenditure of funds 
in the Adirondacks for fire protection. Beside the question of 
protection, the boys and girls will be brought into intimate 
contact with real constructive work and will understand the 
meaning of the idle land question in the state. A number of 
schools began this work in 1913 and 1914 and it is expected 
that a good many will carry on this kind of planting this year. 
