CINCINNATI -- We're not kidding! Goats are reporting to work at noon Friday at the historic Spring Grove Cemetery as the new groundskeepers.
This experiment to see how well the grazing animals can control invasive plants will run for as long as it takes the livestock to consume an acre of ground vegetation, according to David Gressley, director of horticulture for the Spring Grove Cemetery and Arboretum.
Just for the sake of comparison, one acre is about three-fourths of a football field.
The animals will be fenced in the northwest corner of the woodland preserve adjacent to sections 116 and 100/113 in the cemetery. In case they get chilly, a shelter will be positioned next to the parking area inside the woodland preserve.
Spring Grove Cemetery was established as a non-profit cemetery in 1845 and named a National Historic Landmark in 2007. Its website claims it is the second-largest cemetery in the United States.
