4 BULLETIN 414, U. S. DEPARTMENT Or AGRICULTURE. 
PUBLIC- ACCOUNT SYSTEM. 
Under this system the private contractor is eliminated entirely, 
as the State, in addition to maintaining its own penal institution, con- 
ducts all of the industries in which the convict labor is utilized, and 
maintains its own selling organization to dispose of the product. The 
principal difference between the piece-price system and the public- 
account system is that in the latter the profit derived from convict 
labor goes to the State instead of to the private contractor. This 
system is now followed in whole or in part by the following 19 States: 
California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, 
Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, 
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wis- 
consin, and Wyoming. 
STATE-USE SYSTEM. 
The only difference between this and the public-account system 
lies in the disposal of the product, as under the public-account sys- 
tem the product is sold and under the State-use system it is 
limited to the use of State institutions. This system is more widely 
followed than any other, and is now in effect in whole or in part in 
the States of Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, 
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mary- 
land, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New Hamp- 
shire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, 
North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, 
Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. 
A smaller measure of competition with free labor is involved in 
this system than under those already described, and it encroaches 
in a lesser degree upon the field of the private manufacturer. The 
serious objections to the system are that the State institutions 
require a great variety of articles, while the demand for each indi- 
vidual article may be quite limited. Obviously, the State can not 
equip its penal institutions to manufacture all of the articles used 
by State institutions, and if it devotes its efforts to the production of 
a few of such articles the demand may not be sufficient to furnish 
full-time employment for the convicts. 
PUBLIC-WORKS-AND-WAYS SYSTEM. 
This system, which has been gaining ground in recent years, 
involves the use of convict labor in the construction and repair of 
public buildings, public highways, breakwaters, levees, drainage and 
irrigation ditches, and similar works rather than in the production 
of marketable articles or merchandise, and it is under this system that 
the prominence of convict labor as a factor in highway improvement 
finds its place. It can be seen readily that under this system there is 
