The Holy Earth

by L. H. Bailey

Aside from the manual labor part of it, the background of the reformatory should be such as will develop the feeling of responsibility in the workers. This means that they must come actually in contact with the raw materials and with things as they grow. When a young man has a piece of wood or metal given to him in a shop, his whole responsibility is merely to make something out of this material; he has no responsibility for the material itself, as he would have if he had been obliged to mine it or to grow it. One of the greatest advantages of a farm training is that it develops a man's responsibility toward the materials with which he works. He is always brought face to face with the problem of saving the fertility of the land, saving the crops, saving the forests, and saving the live-stock. The idea of saving and safeguarding these materials is only incidental to those who do not help to produce them.

It is important that the farm of this reformatory should be large enough so that all the young men may do some real pieces of work on it. Such a farm is not to be commercial in the ordinary farming sense. Its primary purpose is to aid in a reformative or educational process. You should, therefore, undertake such types of farming as will best serve those needs and best meet the abilities of the inmates. A very highly specialized farming, as the growing of truck-crops, would be quite impracticable as a commercial enterprise because this kind of farming demands the greatest skill and also because it requires a property very easily accessible to our great markets and, therefore, very expensive to procure and difficult to find in large enough acreage for an institution of this size; and it is doubtful whether this type of farming would have the best effect on the inmates. Of course, I should expect that the institution would try to grow its own vegetables, but it would probably be unwise to make truck-gardening the backbone of the farming enterprise. I also feel that it would not be best to make it primarily a dairy farm or a fruit farm or a poultry farm, although all these things should be well represented on the place and in sufficient extent to supply the institution in whole or in part.

There should be such a farming enterprise as would give a very large and open background, part of it practically wild, and which would allow for considerable freedom of action on the part of the inmates. You should have operations perhaps somewhat in the rough and which would appeal to the manly qualities of the young men. It seems to me that a forestry enterprise would possibly be the best as the main part of the farming scheme.

If the reformatory could have one thousand acres of forest, the area would provide a great variety of conditions that the inmates would have to meet, it would give work in the building of roads and culverts and trails, it would provide winter activity at a time when the other farming enterprises are slack, it would bring the inmates directly in touch with wild and native life, and it would also place them against the natural resources in such a way as to make them feel their responsibility for the objects and the supplies.

Perhaps it will be impossible to secure one thousand acres of good timber in a more or less continuous area. However, it might be possible to assemble a good number of contiguous farms in some of the hill regions so that one thousand acres of timber in various grades of maturity might be secured. There would be open spaces which ought to be planted, and this of itself would provide good work and supervision. The trimming, felling, and other care of this forest would be continuous. The forest should not be stripped, but merely the merchantable or ready timber removed from year to year, and the domain kept in a growing and recuperating condition. One thousand acres of forest, in which timber is fit to be cut, should produce an annual increase of two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand board feet, and this increase should not lessen as the years go on. This timber should be manufactured. I have not looked into the question as to whether a market could be found for the materials that would be made from this timber, but I should suppose that a market could be as readily secured for this kind of manufacture as for any other. The educational and moral effect of seeing the material grow, then caring for it, then harvesting it, and then manufacturing it would be very great. One could follow the process from beginning to end and feel a responsibility for it in every stage. I should suppose that the manufacture would be of small work and not merely the sawing of lumber. It might be well to determine whether there would be market for chairs, cabinets, and other furniture, whip-stocks, or small material that could be used in the manufacture of novelties and other like articles. Possibly the reformatory could supply some of the stock to the prisons that are manufacturing furniture, although the educational and moral effects would be better if the inmates could see the process from beginning to end.

Of course, you would not limit the manufacturing activities of the reformatory to wood-working. You probably would be obliged to have other kinds of factories, but the wood-working shops ought to be part of the plan and I should hope a very important part.

I have not made any careful study of this question, and do not know how feasible these suggestions may be; but they appeal to me very strongly on the educational and reformational end. These suggestions are made only that they may be considered along with other suggestions, and if they seem to be worth while, to have the question investigated.

If something like one thousand acres of land were secured for a forest, it would mean that the farm itself would be rather large. There ought to be probably not less than two or three hundred acres of land that might be used for grazing, gardens, and the ordinary farm operations that would contribute to the support of the inmates of the institution. Of course, this arable land ought to be valley land or at least fairly level and accessible along good public highways. The forest land could be more remote, running back on the hills. If the property could be so located that the forest would control the sources of important streams and springs, the results would be all the better. The young men should feel their responsibility for creeks and ponds, and for the protection of wild life as well as for the crops that they raise.

Where the reformatory should be located is a matter that should receive very careful attention. It is not alone the problem of finding a site that is proper for a reformatory, but also the question of so placing it that it will have some relation to State development and some connection with the people's interests and desires. State institutions should be so separated that the greatest number of people may see them or come into contact with them. I dislike the tendency to group the State institutions about certain populous centres. In these days of easy transportation, the carrying problem is really of less importance than certain less definite but none the less real relations to all the people. There are certain great areas in the State of considerable population in which there are no State institutions, and in which the people know nothing about such affairs beyond the local school and church. Perhaps at first blush the people of a locality might not relish the idea of having a reformatory in their midst, but this feeling ought soon to pass away; and, moreover, the people should be made to feel their responsibility for reformatories, asylums, and penitentiaries as well as their responsibility for any other State institutions, and the feeling should not be encouraged that such institutions should be put somewhere else merely because one locality does not desire them.