70 Stour City Academy of Science and Letters. 
One year 13,000 cocoons were produced. “To gather the 
leaves with the necessary care, to feed so many hungry 
mouths from the time of hatching till the last cocoon is 
swung by its silken cables, means the learning of many 
a lesson of care, patience, self-control, neatness and hope. 
It develops also the powers of observation and of 
thought.” 
The farm connected with the institution has been 
increased from 75 to 400 acres. All the work that can 
properly be done by women is done by the prisoners and 
is thus made to contribute to their reformation. The 
income from the sale of farm products also reduces the 
cost of maintenance of the reformatory. For the year 
ending September 30, 1902, the income from this source 
was upwards of $1,700. “The women are given a variety 
of exercise in the open air. Almost daily during the sea- 
son women are sent out in squads to weed in the gardens, 
plant, pick small fruits, harvest vegetables and larger 
fruits, raking lawns, husking corn, filling beds; and not 
infrequently all the women are taken out on the lawn 
together for a half hour. On warm summer evenings 
devotions are held out-of-doors.” 
There is probably no prison in the world where the 
love of reading is fostered as here. Every woman has a 
pocket on the outside of her dress skirt large enough to 
contain a book of ordinary size. Here she keeps the 
library book which on certain days she draws for her 
own pleasure. This she is encouraged to read whenever 
she has a moment of leisure. When waiting for work or 
if, as sometimes happens, the work is not supplied in 
sufficient quantity to keep every woman busy all the 
day, they are at liberty to take out the books and go on 
with their reading. The taste for reading is sure to be 
a help to the many women who go to lonely country 
homes after release. 
No account of the reformatory would be complete 
without a few words about Mrs. Johnson, who was super- 
intendent from 1884 till her death in 1899. She had been 
one of the active workers for the establishment of the 
institution. She had been a prison commissioner from 
1878 to 1884. During the war she had been an active 
