House and Garden 
wiser to omit them, unless it may be in fre¬ 
quented parts of the ground where they can 
be accessory to flower-beds or other orna¬ 
mental features. Grass is the best of allies 
in the beautifying of God’s acre, nor should 
we resent the coming in of golden rod and 
asters, sweet briar and daisy. And there is 
one little plant, so modest, so tender, so un¬ 
obtruding, vet so persistent in its love for 
cemeteries that it has gained the name of 
graveyard spurge—that we should never 
fight off. It mantles over the mounds and 
fills the hollows between with a soft and 
moss-like carpet, in summer a bluish-green, 
in autumn the loveliest show of color that 
Octobral change affords. It is yellow,orange, 
scarlet, crimson, even purple, sometimes all 
of these colors on one stem, yet as harmoni¬ 
ous and softly blended as are the tints of an 
opal or a rainbow. An acre covered quite 
with spurge would rival, in the time of leafy 
glow, the finest of old Anatolian rugs. 
Conformably with this quiet and attractive 
covering, herbs and bushes chosen for setting 
out should be hardy plants—perennials, like 
roses, fleur-de-lis, lilies, lily-of-the-valley, 
violets, syringa, lilac ; and for walls and 
fences, morning glory, which sows itself 
busily wherever it finds a chance to climb. 
If plants of less endurance are employed, 
there is need to avoid stiff forms that 
repeat and thereby emphasize the lines of 
the monuments, and to relieve them with 
what is graceful, rounded or drooping. 
Ferns are admirable, unless one excepts the 
tall sword ferns, and their serenity and grace 
suit them to old parts and quiet corners of the 
cemetery. Nearly all flowers are agreeable 
when one regards them rightly, yet the gera¬ 
nium and marigold are vivid for grave uses, 
while zinnias have a bristling and fencepost 
assertiveness, like mulleins. If garden plants 
are to be used, they should be used as in 
gardens, not in finical scatterings, a pot or 
A TYPICAL MEETING-HOUSE GRAVEYARD Burlington, New Jersey 
247 
