SECRETARY'S REPORT. 241 



is true, but the effect is unfavorable to agriculture and unjust to the 

 Board. We pay a large sum of money partly to reform and educate 

 the boys which is charged to expense of carrying on the farm. 



If the legislature would appropriate a sum of money large enough 

 to complete such permanent improvements on the farm as seem to be 

 necessary, including the erection of suitable buildings to accommo- 

 date the men who must be employed there, and provide suitable per- 

 sons to take care of the boys when they are at work on the farm, the 

 Board of Agriculture Avould have an opportunity of expending the 

 money placed at their disposal to advantage, of trying experiments in 

 a proper manner, at reasonable cost, and of demonstrating whether 

 farming can be done at a profit or not. But under the present sys- 

 tem, there is danger that the object for which the State Farm was 

 placed in charge of the State Board of Agriculture may be defeated. 



IvEES Phillips. 



The circumstances of the farm are well alluded to in the 

 above report, as somewhat peculiar. In the employment of 

 labor, reference must constantly and of necessity be had to the 

 good and the wants of the inmates of the State Reform School. 



A large proportion of the one hundred and fifty boys worked 

 on the farm are of an age at which their services are of little 

 value over and above the cost of the high class of labor required 

 to superintend, control and instruct them. Moreover, it is not 

 possible to employ constantly so large a number of boys on work 

 which will yield an immediate income, and many must be kept 

 on permanent improvements, which, though important prospec- 

 tively, as developing the resources of the farm, do not appear to 

 swell the immediate profits of their labor, while they greatly 

 swell the aggregate amount of the expenditures for improve- 

 ments. With these facts in view, the amount asked for and 

 required for the proper management of the State Farm will not 

 appear to be large. 



It will be noticed, too, by the report of the committee, that 

 the Board are subjected to a high charge for labor in the shape 

 of board of men employed on the farm. This arises from the 

 want of a sintable farm house, a want which makes it necessary 

 to board or lodge more or less of the men in the neighborhood 

 instead of at the farm house, where they should and would be 

 boarded if it were possible. This want would have been amply 



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