708 



VIRGINIA. 



tained at the expense of the State, if paupers, 

 enjoying all scholastic advantages, besides food 

 and clothing. If they are able to pay, they are 

 charged $130 a year for board and clothing, but 

 tuition is free. The institution has no vested fund, 

 but the annual State appropriation is $35.000. 



William and Mary, the oldest college in the 

 colonies except Harvard (which still receives a 

 certain yearly income from the Crown, from an 

 endowment settled on it by the sovereigns for 

 whom it was named), enrolled 169 students dur- 

 ing 1893-'94. In order to establish in connec- 

 tion with the college a system of normal in- 

 struction and training of young white men for 

 teachers in the State public school, the State 

 annually appropriates $10.000 to this college, 

 which permits it to send 1 student from every 

 district and 1 for every additional delegate to 

 the House of Delegates. "under these terms: That 

 the student receive all tuition free, and that his 

 food, lights, and washing shall be guaranteed 

 him at $10 a month; provided he bind himself, 

 on leaving the college, to teach two years. 



The Miller Manual-Labor School has an en- 

 dowment of $1,300,000. The students for 1893- 

 '94 were 95 girls and 167 boys. 



The State Library, one of the most beautiful 

 buildings of that character in the South, was 

 completed in November. It cost $174,200. 



Legal Decision. Since 1879 the Constitu- 

 tion of the State of Virginia has limited the 

 jurisdiction of magistrates in cases of petit 

 larceny of a discharge of the accused, or bail for 

 the crime accused of, or the necessity of await- 

 ing trial before a grand jury. Out of this law 

 grew two famous test cases, the Brown vs. Epps, 

 sergeant of the city of Richmond, and the Mary 

 Miller case. The first, a habeas corpus case, cost 

 the State large criminal expenses, besides that of 

 having the Constitution amended, the amend- 

 ment being one of the two tickets voted at the 

 November election, and decided unanimously for 

 the amendment. In the Mary Miller case the 

 late court, of which L. L. Lewis was president, 

 decided that sections 4106 to 4108 of the code, 

 which confer upon police justices and justices of 

 the peace, in addition to the jurisdiction ex- 

 ercised by them as conservators of the peace, 

 concurrent jurisdiction with the county and the 

 corporation courts for the trial of petty offenses 

 already enumerated, were in conflict with the 

 constitutional provision guaranteeing a trial by 

 jury in all criminal prosecutions. The present 

 court decides that not only is the act as amended 

 not in conflict with the Constitution, but that no 

 conflict existed before such amendment, and 

 therefore the writ of habeas corpus must be 

 denied and the prisoner, Brown, must be re- 

 mitted to the sergeant of the city of Richmond. 

 Tens of thousands of dollars per annum will be 

 saved the Si ah; by this decision. 



Agriculture. The President of the State 

 Board of Agriculture prefaces the report of the 

 commissioner with the statement that the Vir- 

 ginia Board of Agriculture was created by the 

 Assembly in 1888, that it, is composed of 10 mem- 

 bers, all practical farmers and serving without 

 any emolument whatever, and that to every sug- 

 gestion proffered by this board the Assembly 

 has turned a deaf ear. But certain of these sug- 

 gestions have to a limited extent been put to a 



practical test with gratifying results namely, 

 the farmers' institutes, the benefits offered by 

 the Federal Weather Service Bureau, and the 

 great advantages accruing from fertilizers. 



The fertilizer law, while not fair or equitable, 

 and not embracing provisions recommended by 

 the board, has been faithfully administered, and 

 has secured to the farmers of the State immunity 

 from fraud and in) position in the purchase of 

 fertilizers. 



The appropriation reported to the credit of 

 the board by the Auditor was $13,000, $3,000 of 

 which was set apart from the fund derived from 

 the fees on fertilizers, " for all expenses in the 

 collection of taxes on fertilizers and fertilizing 

 companies." The fees collected from the latter 

 were $9,180, and the cost of executing the fer- 

 tilizer law in this fiscal year was $7,156.88, with 

 no allowance for collection or disbursement. 

 This necessitated a charge of $4,156.88 against 

 the annual appropriation of $10,000. The item- 

 ized account shows a total expenditure for all 

 purposes of $11,715.83; hence there lapsed into 

 the treasury, of the $13.000 placed to the credit 

 of the board at the beginning of the fiscal year 

 1894-'95, $1,284.17. The cost of the department 

 to the taxpayers of Virginia was $2.535.83. 



The work in the field and the laboratory has 

 been larger in 1894 than in any previous year. 

 Mining is slowly developing and increasing; 

 every new mine, according to the law, is investi- 

 gated and reported. The report of assays made 

 by the Virginia Agricultural' and Mechanical 

 College for the benefit of the State Board of 

 Agriculture shows this examination. This year 

 the pests of insects increased greatly, and fungous 

 diseases have attacked vegetables,' but the com- 

 mission had no authority to employ an entomol- 

 ogist. There is no legislation for drainage ; in- 

 closures are locally controlled in every section. 

 The board has had no distribution of seed since 

 the discontinuance of the supply from the United 

 States Department of Agriculture, for distribu- 

 tion of bought seed does not repay the cost until 

 the experiment stations and State farms produce 

 seed of new and the best variety. These, and the 

 lack of effort in the matter of immigration, are 

 some of the difficulties under which the Board of 

 Agriculture labors. There were no farmers' in- 

 stitutes this year (1893-'94). In December, 1893, 

 the San Jose or Perniciosas scale appeared in the 

 fruit-growing region of middle Virginia, near 

 Charlottesville, where large quantities of wine 

 are manufactured. The State Board of Agricul- 

 ture appealed to the United States department 

 for assistance, for the pest threatened the whole 

 Atlantic coast. The affected trees were cut down 

 and burned. Infected fruit brought from Cali- 

 fornia, where the epidemic had done great harm, 

 is supposed to have distributed the larva?. 



The peanut crop did not prosper this year, but 

 the cultivated blackberry was a large source of 

 revenue. The beet-sugar industry was given 

 special attention, and its best results were ob- 

 tained in Augusta County. The commissioner 

 recommends that, while wheat and corn can not 

 be profitably raised for market, dairying, stock. 

 and truck farms can be made sources of profit 

 and support. 



Immigration. On Oct. 16, 1894. an Immi- 

 gration Convention was held in Richmond, at 



