Conservation of natural resources; Country life; Earth (Planet); Natural resources; Nature
If something like one thousand acres of land were secured for a forest,
it would mean that the farm itself would be rather large. There ought to
be probably not less than two or three hundred acres of land that might
be used for grazing, gardens, and the ordinary farm operations that
would contribute to the support of the inmates of the institution. Of
course, this arable land ought to be valley land or at least fairly
level and accessible along good public highways. The forest land could
be more remote, running back on the hills. If the property could be so
located that the forest would control the sources of important streams
and springs, the results would be all the better. The young men should
feel their responsibility for creeks and ponds, and for the protection
of wild life as well as for the crops that they raise.
Where the reformatory should be located is a matter that should receive
very careful attention. It is not alone the problem of finding a site
that is proper for a reformatory, but also the question of so placing it
that it will have some relation to State development and some
connection with the people's interests and desires. State institutions
should be so separated that the greatest number of people may see them
or come into contact with them. I dislike the tendency to group the
State institutions about certain populous centres. In these days of easy
transportation, the carrying problem is really of less importance than
certain less definite but none the less real relations to all the
people. There are certain great areas in the State of considerable
population in which there are no State institutions, and in which the
people know nothing about such affairs beyond the local school and
church. Perhaps at first blush the people of a locality might not relish
the idea of having a reformatory in their midst, but this feeling ought
soon to pass away; and, moreover, the people should be made to feel
their responsibility for reformatories, asylums, and penitentiaries as
well as their responsibility for any other State institutions, and the
feeling should not be encouraged that such institutions should be put
somewhere else merely because one locality does not desire them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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