PARK AND CEMETERY. 
241 
cover the lot for the debt, the object and desire 
is not to repossess the lot, but to collect the 
amount of the sale price, otherwise the object 
of the sale is defeated. It therefore behooves us 
to be sure, that any weakness or disadvantage we 
may encounter or imagine from this source is not 
attributable to our methods or lack of system be- 
fore condemning the practice of selling on de- 
ferred payments on these grounds. 
I consider it entirely unnecessary to dwell at 
any length upon the advantages from the selling 
end of the business, for it needs no argument of 
mine, I am sure, to convince any practical, live, 
experienced cemetery salesman of the fact, that 
there are hundreds, possibly thousands, in their 
community, who can or could — if given the oppor- 
tunity — purchase and pay for them on time con- 
tracts, who are not provident enough to ever save 
up for such a purchase as they might desire on 
a cash basis. Also that there are other hundreds, 
who do or might curtail their purchases, not be- 
cause of lack of means, but because of what is 
termed ready money, or an unnecessary sacrifice in- 
volved in obtaining it at the particular time they 
may be called upon to make the purchase. We 
consider it eminently proper and fitting for one to 
purchase a home to live in on such a plan — and 
more homes have been and are being acquired on 
such a plan than are or ever have been purchased 
outright for cash — why not a cemtery lot to be 
buried in? 
If a thorough investigation — a proper understand- 
ing — an intensive and constant application of sell- 
ing, credit, and collection systems and contract 
rights leaves no doubt as to the preponderance 
of the advantages, why should we not profit by it? 
BRAINS AND MUSCLE 
before the Minneapolis Convention of the A. A. C. S. 
Rudd, President Mt. Greenwood Cemetery, Chicago. 
An address 
by IV. N. 
Artemus Ward used to advertise a lec- 
ture on “Ten Minutes in China.’’ He 
would then lecture on almost every- 
thing else but China, never touching on 
a point even remotely connected with 
that country and ending up by saying, 
“Oh! I was to lecture about ‘Ten Min- 
utes in China.’ Well, I never was in 
China and I guess everybody in the au- 
dience knows more than I do about 
China, anyway.” So if the present writer 
rambles far away from his subect he 
will at least have a good precedent. 
It takes two things to run a modern 
cemetery properly — brains and muscle — 
and there must be a proper balance be- 
tween them. Down Boston way they 
are said to worship brains, but even in 
other parts of the country (yes, I hear 
somebody say Chicago) there are cases 
where the brains part overbalances the 
muscle end, so as to make the combina- 
tion topheavy — to say nothing of the 
reverse proposition. That is to say, the 
value of good brains is often nullied by 
the lack of the muscular force and drive 
necessary to “follow through” as the 
golfers put it. 
Now, in addition to the muscles of his 
own which each of us is supposed to 
possess, we have to hire a lot of muscle 
— “Dutch muscle” to drop into slang. 
We would like to get a modicum of 
brains along with this kind of muscle, 
but too often “Brains they have nix.” 
To my notion one of the chief indica- 
tions of constriction in the cranial 
cavity — and one frequently seen — is to 
attempt to buy labor under the market 
price (or to buy anything else for that 
matter) and expect to get, or at least 
retain anything but inferior quality. We 
all know that labor is our big operating 
cost and poor labor is the most wasteful, 
expensive and exasperating proposition 
one ever has to deal with. If we are 
paying under the market, the good man, 
if we get him at all, will leave in a short 
time to better himself, while the ordi- 
nary man does not care for the job and 
is not worried about being “fired,” be- 
cause he can, without trouble, get an- 
other job just as good at any time. 
We have in the past tried three ways: 
paying under the market, paying regular 
rates and paying a little more, and have 
proved conclusively that we get the most 
value in work accomplished when we pay 
the highest rates, and the least when we 
pay the lowest. 
Good pay makes a man contented, 
and a contented gang will always do 
more and better work than the same 
men when discontented and sore. The 
cheap man, besides doing less and 
poorer work, requires more supervision, 
and this is a point often missed. Then 
too, the moral effect of having the men 
feel they are getting a square deal, and 
of your feeling you are giving them a 
square deal is not to be overlooked. It 
is often said that men can not stand 
prosperity — which is true in some cases, 
but the man who can not appreciate 
liberal treatment is a man no one should 
want. The sooner one finds out about 
men of this type and eliminates them 
from the force, the better. 
The superintendent’s brains are, or 
should be, largely of use in aiding the 
laborer to turn out the best possible 
quantity — quality results with his muscle. 
I use the word “aiding” deliberately in 
preference to “forcing.” At an early day 
the writer conceived it his duty to be 
very conservative and careful in the pur- 
chase of tools, magnifying the first cost 
and not giving proper consideration to 
results, and keeping all tools in use until 
fairly worn out. Suspicions as to the 
correctness of this plan arose, especially 
as to using shovels shortened in the 
blade by wear. A pile of dirt was 
shoveled over with an old well-worn 
shovel and shoveled back with a newer, 
full sized one. This was repeated at 
intervals by the same man and by differ- 
ent men to eliminate the personal equa- 
tion, until it became generally under- 
stood among the men that the “old man” 
was “nutty.” An average of the time 
showed that the men were doing ten per 
cent less work with the worn shovels. 
At $1.80 per day, this meant 18 cents 
per day lost. A shovel cost 90 cents and 
five days’ loss, working with the old one, 
paid for a new one. We now have a 
collection of perfectly good shovels, ex- 
cept that they are worn back an inch, to 
sell to the junk man at frequent inter- 
vals. 
Observation teaches that a man will 
often lose as much time unloading one 
car of sand with a common shovel as 
would buy a sand shovel. Some men 
will use a sewer shovel for heavy digging 
in place of a spade and get much more 
work done. Put two men to unload a 
car of crushed stone, especially of the 
larger sizes — one with a round pointed 
shovel and the other with a square 
pointed. The round pointed fellow will 
almost earn the price of his shovel in a 
day, as compared with the other one. 
We used to use the old, heavy, low 
wheel, eighteen-inch lawn mowers, be- 
cause they were cheap, strong and dura- 
ble. One of the light steel, twenty-one- 
inch mowers was put on trial, with con- 
siderable misgiving. In a few days there 
was a fist fight between two men who 
both wanted to use the big machine. 
That settled it. The old machines went 
to the junk man and each laborer there- 
after had a chance to push a twenty-one- 
inch machine, as they liked it better and 
we certainly did. The effective cut of an 
eighteen-inch machine is not over fifteen 
inches — of a twenty-one-inch, eighteen 
inches, twenty per cent more. With 
labor at $1.80 per day, this was 36 cents 
made for each day’s run. One could 
hardly pay 36 cents per day for the sake 
of saving a $6.50 mower. That would be 
worse than pawn-brokers’ rates. 
The advisability of purchasing a tool 
which will not be frequently used is a 
matter of simple mathematics. Five per 
cent interest on cost m,ust be charged: 
if not frequently used ten per cent will 
cover depreciation (if tools are properly 
looked after) and another ten per cent 
will be liberal for storage, care and in- 
surance, and loss or breakage, so we 
have an annual cost of 25 cents on a 
dollar tool. If the saving per day, mul- 
tiplied by the number of days’ use dur- 
ing the year amounts to, say, 30 cents, it 
is a good buy. If it amounts to less 
than 25 cents and other tools on hand 
can be made to do it, don’t buy it. 
Take the $6.50 lawn mower spoken of 
above. Five per cent interest is 33 
cents, fifty per cent depreciation, $3.25, 
ten per cent care, etc., 65 cents — total 
annual cost, $4.23. The twenty-one-inch 
machine figured the same way, first cost 
being $10.50, will show an annual cost of 
$6.83 — $2.60 more for the season. If we 
reduce our estimated saving by one- 
third, as a factor of safety, we still get 
