Popular Science Monthly 



99 



The stables and shops of the model prison farm. The land shown in the photograph was 

 a wilderness of pine forests and disease-breeding swamps before the convicts improved it 



each day in labor by the average free farm 

 hand in the South. They take three hours, 

 exclusive of the time spent en route to and 

 from the stockade, for rest and dinner in 

 the middle of the day. 



They grow cotton, corn, sorghum cane, 

 potatoes and all kinds of vegetables, and 

 raise cattle, hogs and chickens. Last year 

 their Irish potato patch was 550 acres, and 

 an even larger area was given to sweet 

 potatoes. 



The methods of crop cultivation and 

 livestock raising that have been adopted are 



This gives an idea of the work the convicts accomplished in 

 converting the three thousand forest acres into tillable land 



the best known to the State Department of 

 Agriculture. The Commissioner of Agri- 

 culture, William A. McRae, sees to it that 

 all the work is done in the best possible 

 manner. The result is that practically all 

 persons released • from Bradford Farms are 

 highly skilled farm workers. The more 

 intelligent ones are well trained in farm 

 management also. 



At the present time the prison popula- 

 tion at Bradford Farms is approximately 

 650. About 250 are leased to counties to 

 work on public roads. There are 736 

 working for private corpo- 

 rations. But the lease law 

 of to-day is not like the old 

 one. It places the working 

 of leased convicts under 

 rigid State inspection, and 

 gives the Commissioner of 

 Agriculture the right to 

 cancel contracts whenever 

 lessees fail to treat prisoners 

 humanely. Only negroes of 

 low-grade intelligence are 

 leased, and the contracts 

 are limited to two years. 



There is a rapidly in- 

 creasing sentiment in favor 

 of abolishing the lease sys- 

 tem and sending all the 

 State's convicts to Bradford 

 Farms during imprisonment. 



