SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3091, 7 May 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

SELF-SUPPORTING PRISONS.

PRKsuMAnrA", if rightly managed, our entiro criminal- population might be made self-supporting by planting it 011 waste lands, and converting the latter into fruitful fields and gardens. In fact, we do not require to put tho matter forward as one of conjecture at all, the system having already been tried and found to be preeminently successful on Dartmoor, so far as its economical results are coucorned. It will bo well to get a clear notion of what has been actually accomplished on the Prison Farm, Princetown, Dartmoor, where a tract of 2UQO acres in extent, of about 1500 ft. above sea level, has been nearly nil reclaimed from waste since ISSO. Tho prison itself was erected a great many years previously for tho confinement of prisoners captured in the French and American wars, but, being converted into a convict establishment in ISaO, -ibout 25 acres yearly have boon reclaimed by tho criminals, who also ire made to erect high stone walls, built of granite boulders, around square fields of 10 to 20 acres each. Tho prison establishment sometimes numbers upwards of 1000 persons, and G7 acres have bcon laid out as meadows to receive and be irrigated by tho largo volume of sewage obtainable therefrom. The produce of these meadows is converted partly into hay and partly into silage. Thirty acres are devoted to tho growth of garden vegetables, this area being hid out in plots of an acre each divided by his;h hedges of elder, tlre object being to give shelter from spring frosts. All kinds of vegetables arc grown, not merely for consumption in tho establishment, but for sale. As many as 700 cucumbers have been sold in a singlo season, and celery succeeds well, and is grown for marketing. As for cabbages and winter greens, no fewer than I'JO.OOO plants are raised and planted out yearly. Of live stock there is a dairy herd of >15 cows, tho wholo of the calves of which are reared. A great many cattlo not bred 011 tho farm are also brought in to be fattened. The flock of sheep consists of 400 improved Dartmoors, some of which are every year exhibited, in show yards. The work of cultivation is performed wholly by con.> ricts. Annual auctions of surplus live Stock are held, at which from £1400 to £1500 worth are often sold, in addition to numerous private sales of ponies, sliec-p, and pigs. A considerable revenue to the Government accrues from this laudable enterprise, sufficient to show that wherever other waste tracts belonging to the Crown are to be found it would bo a matter of strict oeonomy to build our prisons on them, so that not only the worst classes of offenders, but those who are incarcerated for petty misdemeanors, and, in fact, our entire criminals largo and small, might be made to perform similar works of reclamation first, and then those of ordinary farm labour. By such means we might in ad probability make our prisons and convict estalishmonts self-supporting. — Agricultural Economist.