The inmates are marched into the dining hall three times a day for their meals, including Sunday. The farm operated in conjunction with the prison and by prisoners (under direction of proper officials) supplies seasonable vegetables, and now and then fresh meat from the farm’s herd of cattle and pigs. This gives an advantage to the steward of the prison in providing a greater variety of food and a more attractive menu at the same per capita expenditure as the other prisons in the State are allowed which are not favored with a farm. The per capita expenditure in all State prisons is limited by legislative appropriation. The fine air, good water, sound sleep in clean beds and clean rooms, the daily exercise at work on the farm and at such other work as is connected with running the prison--all combine to supply a hearty appetite to the inmates. This appetite is met by a table limited by the legislature, as already stated, and is limited also for the men’s own good by hygienic restrictions. * * * * * _The Prison Farm at Occoquan, Virginia._--An interesting account of the progress of the District of Columbia’s prison farm was recently given by Rev. J. T. Masten, secretary of the Virginia state board of charities and corrections. The past year’s experience of the prison commissioners of the District of Columbia has made a great impression upon him, as it has on every thoughtful student of criminology. Two years ago Congress wrote in the appropriation bill authority to the prison commissioners of the District to do away with the jail system by placing the prisoners on a farm. The sum of $190,000 was appropriated for the purpose. Under the old system it was costing the commissioners $150,000 to care for the prisoners each year. The board took the money and bought a farm of eleven hundred acres near Occoquan, in Prince William county, Va. They took the male prisoners to the farm and used them exclusively in the clearing of the land and preparing it for cultivation and in the erection of the necessary buildings, one-story frame buildings erected by the prisoners. To illustrate the economy of the work the administration building, which is 30 by 175 feet, cost in actual money two hundred dollars, the prisoners doing the work, sawing the lumber from the timber on the property. The work proved a splendid moral and physical tonic to the men. The prison motto was made, “Reformation, not vindictive punishment.” At first one guard had charge of six prisoners. Now one man has charge of twenty prisoners and directs them in their work. The prisoners do not wear chains and are not bound at night. There are no bars at the windows and two men take care of 225 male prisoners at night and one woman cares for sixty female prisoners.