Thomas Forsyth Hunt

Various laws have been enacted by federal and state legislatures for the better protection of producer and consumer. Much of this legislation affects in a very special way the interests of the farmer. Not infrequently, in fact, generally, the state department of agriculture has more or less direct jurisdiction over their enforcement. State departments of agriculture usually publish a collection of the laws of this character. These laws vary greatly in the different states and only the most general outline, as they affect the interests of the farmer, can be given here. Persons can inform themselves as to the details as enforced in a given state by applying to the state secretary of agriculture.

A number of these acts affect interstate commerce, concerning which the United States Constitution says: No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any impost or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws. By a series of judicial decisions it has been determined that a State has a right to enforce laws affecting interstate commerce when traffic in the articles thus modified or prohibited affects the public welfare. When it is necessary to have a police regulation to prevent fraud in the traffic of an article or for the purpose of guarding the public health or morals, police laws, so called, may be enacted and enforced. Around this general question there has waged a bitter controversy which has occupied some of the best legal minds and is one involving some difficulty.

FERTILIZER CONTROL

One of the first of the control measures to be enacted, and the one which has been most universally adopted by the several states, is the law requiring the manufacturer and dealer in commercial fertilizers to guarantee the percentage of the so-called essential fertilizing elements—nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium—contained in each bag of fertilizer offered for sale. Subsequent control laws have been modeled more or less closely after this law. Hence a description of the operation and execution of it will serve for all.

The execution of this law is usually under the immediate supervision of the state secretary of agriculture, while the necessary chemical analyses are made by the state experiment station. In some states the enforcement of the law is in charge of the state experiment station, while in others the state department of agriculture has its own laboratories or employs a private chemist. It is, however, becoming a more and more settled policy to place all police regulations in charge of the state department of agriculture, while at the same time the chemical analyses and other scientific and technological inquiries are made at the state experiment station.

In order to facilitate the taking of samples and in order to raise funds for the execution of the law, the manufacturer is required to take out a license and to make a statement of the brands of fertilizers which he will place upon the market in the given state during the given season.

During the spring and fall season agents traverse the state and sample the bags of fertilizers as found on sale by local merchants. The samples are sent by number under seal to the designated chemist, while at the same time the agent transmits to the state officer in charge of the enforcement of the law the necessary information concerning these samples. Upon the receipt of the analysis made by the chemist, who has had no knowledge of the origin of the sample, the state officer compares them with the guarantee of the manufacturer, and if he finds it necessary enters legal complaint. While these laws have been in force for many years in some states and in many states for some years, prosecution has seldom been found necessary. The honest manufacturer is protected from dishonest competition, and the dishonest manufacturer, if there be such, cannot afford the publicity which noncompliance with the law would entail.

It has been customary to publish, with the results of analysis, also an estimate of the commercial value per ton of each brand of fertilizer. This estimated commercial value is obtained by multiplying the pounds of each element or combinations of the element in a ton by a value per pound. To the value of the fertilizer thus obtained is added something for cost of mixing, bagging and freight, and something for profit. The price per pound given to each element or combinations of the elements is based upon the commercial value of the element when purchased in raw materials. The price for each year is usually determined by a conference of those in control of the execution of the law in the several states for certain groups of states. As a matter of fact, the price varies little from year to year.

The published figures, therefore, constitute a table of comparative commercial values as determined by the most expert knowledge. While not constituting a statement of absolute commercial value for any given locality, they do enable the purchaser to determine whether the price quoted on a given brand of fertilizer is within reason. Persons who are unacquainted with the principles controlling the use of commercial fertilizers may, however, be led to believe that the price of the fertilizer is an indication of its value for the production of a given crop. As is well known to all students of the subject, there is no necessary relation between the commercial value of a fertilizer and the fitness of its formula for a given soil and crop. For these and other reasons, the publication of tables of commercial value has been strongly opposed by some manufacturers, and in certain states the custom has been discontinued. While granting that tables of commercial value are subject to misinterpretation, it is perhaps fair to say that such tables have been of most benefit, and, moreover, have been of great value to those who were most likely to misinterpret them.

It has been customary in most states to make analyses only of mixed fertilizers. Thus such raw materials as nitrate of soda, sulphate of ammonia, dried blood, bone meal, rock phosphate, tankage, muriate of potash, sulphate of potash, have not been brought under the operation of the law. If one wishes to purchase nitrate of soda, muriate of potash and tankage with the intention of mixing them according to a formula of his own, he may not find any protection in his state. However, these products can be obtained through reputable dealers who will willingly guarantee the contents. In case of doubt, the purchaser may secure an analysis by his state experiment station at a moderate cost.

The law requires that there shall be affixed to every package of fertilizer offered for sale a statement about as follows:

The minimum per centum of each of the following constituents which may be contained therein:

(a) Nitrogen.

(b) Soluble, available and total phosphoric acid, except in cases of undissolved bone, basic slag phosphate, wood ashes, unheated phosphate rock, garbage tankage and pulverized natural manures, when the minimum per centum of total phosphoric acid may be substituted. This latter applies only in those states where raw materials are subject to inspection.

(c) Potash soluble in distilled water.

It is possible to comply with the law and yet state the guarantee upon each bag of fertilizer in such a manner as to mislead the uninformed. It is not the purpose of this book to deal with such technical details, but if the purchaser of commercial fertilizers is not already well acquainted with fertilizer terms, he should secure an elementary textbook on the subject or write to his state experiment station for a bulletin discussing them.

The law controlling the sale of stock foods is of more recent origin than the fertilizer control act and has not been so universally adopted up to the present time. The necessity for such a law arises from the growing use as stock foods of various by-products in the manufacture of liquors, starch, glucose, sugar, cottonseed and linseed oils and breakfast foods. Various mixtures, varying widely in chemical composition, especially in protein and crude fiber, were placed upon the market. In some instances mixtures were grossly adulterated with such things as oat hulls and ground corn cobs.

The adoption of this law by certain states has served to make other states the dumping ground for inferior stock foods, thus increasing the necessity for similar protection. The law does not apply to the ordinary grains produced by farmers or to the usual by-products of millers.

From time immemorial it has been the universal custom of seedsmen to disclaim all responsibility for the purity and germinating power of their seeds. But as the importance of good seed—good in hereditary power, good in germination, good in its freedom from adulteration, good in its absence of noxious weed seed—has become better understood demand for some method of control has arisen. In at least one state there is a seed-control law modeled quite closely after the fertilizer-control law. However, the usual method of protection consists in purchasing by sample or the insistence of a guarantee, with a subsequent analysis of a sample of the purchased seed.

The germinating power and purity of seed can be determined cheaply by an expert within from five to twenty days, depending upon the species. The federal government has a division of seed control in its Department of Agriculture at Washington, D. C. Any person may send a sample of seed to this division and have its purity and germinating power determined, and in some of the states the experiment station will perform similar services without charge. Clover, alfalfa, grass and other small seeds should always be purchased subject to such inspection, unless the purchaser is prepared to make his own inspection, which a very little training makes possible.

There is no national law concerning the importation of insect-infested or diseased plant stock.

Several of the states have passed both state and interstate regulations concerning the sale of nursery stock. The insects usually legislated against are San Jose scale, gypsy moth and brown-tail moth, while the diseases usually interdicted are yellows, black knot, peach rosette, and pear blight.

The enforcement of the law is usually placed in charge of a person having special knowledge of economic insects and fungous diseases. In addition to these police regulations this officer may, by various means, attempt to bring into practice methods calculated to eradicate or, at least, lessen the severity of existing attacks.

Commerce in vinegar, dried fruits, insecticides and fungicides is also regulated in some states.

An adequate discussion of the rise and development of the control in the sale of dairy and food products would require a chapter by itself, if not an entire volume. Suffice it to say here that the laws on this general subject have acquired an importance in many ways quite beyond that of any of the other control measures discussed in this chapter. In the extent of funds handled, the number of agents employed and the public interest incited, the office of dairy and food commissioner outranks any other control agency. In some states the office is an elective one, and the questions with which the office has to deal become a part of the state political campaign.

The importance of the inspection of dairy and food products grows out of the fact that not only is the consumer, hence all the world, interested, but the execution of these laws touch large commercial interests. Not only are meat packers, distillers and brewers deeply interested, but the wholesale and retail grocers and, more recently, the manufacturing and prescribing druggists, are vitally concerned.

Not many years ago the inspection of dairy products, particularly control of the traffic in oleomargarine, was the chief function of this office. To-day the enforcement of laws concerning pure foods, liquor and drugs is of much greater importance.

Interstate commerce in oleomargarine is now regulated through the enactment of an internal revenue law requiring a tax of ten cents a pound on colored oleomargarine and one-fourth of a cent a pound on uncolored oleomargarine and, further, by prescribing the character of package and method of marking all oleomargarine entering into interstate commerce. State agencies are charged with the duty of requiring the compliance of local dealers and restaurateurs with the general features of the federal law. Some states, however, prohibit entirely the sale of colored oleomargarine within the state.

Attempts to define what is pure milk, cream, butter or cheese have been fraught with much difficulty. Thus, for example, legal definitions of pure milk have resulted in some cows giving illegal milk. In some instances the law has declared simply that whole milk is milk from which no cream has been removed; in others, the minimum amount of butter fat has been prescribed; in still others, the minimum amount of total solids containing a minimum proportion of butter fat has been made the basis of legal milk. In like manner full cream cheese has been defined as cheese made from whole milk or from milk from which only a given amount of cream has been removed, while in other instances the minimum amount of butter fat which full cream cheese may contain is prescribed. The wide variation in the amount of butter fat carried by cream has caused much jocular comment and some serious discussion as to what is cream.

While it is not feasible to indicate the laws for the several states, the ruling of the federal government as to what constitutes purity in dairy products under the national food and drug act may be accepted as a general guide. A circular giving the required information may be secured by addressing the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C.

The control of contagious diseases in domestic animals and the inspection of meat products have been the chief work of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture since its establishment.

The bureau inspects all imported live animals and under certain conditions will inspect live animals intended for exportation. It inspects all meat products intended for export. Its inspection of meats intended for interstate commerce is less rigid than that exported. Meats sold within the state in which they are slaughtered cannot be required by the federal government to undergo inspection. It thus happens that the people of the several states enjoy less protection in the consumption of meat than the foreign purchaser of American meats unless there is a state meat inspection law. However, it is becoming more and more the custom for the large packers to have all their products inspected without regard to their destination. The meats slaughtered in the locality in which they are consumed are the ones that receive the least supervision.

The federal government has been especially active and efficient in the prevention of interstate commerce in cattle suffering with Texas fever, and sheep attacked with scab and foot rot. Through the agency of the bureau dipping tanks have been provided in all the great live stock markets for the disinfection of cattle and sheep when needed.

Several of the states have laws controlling the importation of diseased animals from other states and the transfer of them within the state. The following are the diseases most commonly mentioned in the laws of the several states: Anthrax, black quarter, hog cholera, swine plague, rabies, glanders and tuberculosis. The law is generally enforced by a state veterinarian, whose acts are supervised either by a state live stock commission or the state secretary of agriculture or these two agencies acting conjointly.

Perhaps the disease which has required the greatest amount of attention in the several states is tuberculosis in milch cows. It is customary for this office to apply the tuberculin test, free of charge, under certain stipulations, to any herd upon the request of the owner and to supervise the slaughter and disposition of the reacting animals. In some states the owner is indemnified in part or in whole for his loss. The amount of indemnity as well as the general features of the law concerning the control of tuberculosis in domestic animals has been the subject of much controversy and cannot be said to have reached an altogether satisfactory solution in most states.

The young farmer should clearly understand that under no circumstances can he afford to have a tuberculous animal in his herd. The contact of a diseased animal with other animals of the herd is certain to entail a greater loss than the destruction of the diseased animal. The farmer must in his own interest rear healthy animals whether or not it is necessary for the protection of the consumer.

The motives underlying the enactment of laws concerning fish and game are varied. The controversies over these laws in the legislatures of the several states indicate that there is a belief, whatever may be the fact, that there are opposing interests; viz., those of the hunter or sportsman on the one hand, and those of the farmer or landowner on the other. The law of trespass has been one over which has raged much bitterness, both with regard to the form of the law to be enacted and concerning its subsequent enforcement. Sportsmen have usually held that a distinction existed between wild animals occupying private property and domestic animals. The landowner has urged that others should not trespass upon his property for the purpose of shooting wild animals, although his proprietary right in them was no greater.

In like manner, laws concerning the closed season, made to protect animals during the breeding period, are the subject of extended discussion and are being constantly changed; both because there is a difference of opinion concerning the habits of the different species and because the motive varies for maintaining the supply. Some animals are protected on account of their benefit, supposed or real, to agriculture. Other animals are protected because of their gaming qualities, even to the extent of sometimes injuring farm crops. The money spent by sportsmen in the pursuit of game is an element in the varied interests involved. Humane motives and a desire to prevent the further restriction of a not too varied fauna have helped, also, to save certain species from extinction. On the other hand, in some states commercial interests are involved, as where large quantities of birds are taken for their plumage.

Some attempts have been made to introduce foreign species, as the Japanese pheasant. It is, however, with fish that the most has been accomplished in replenishment. The federal government and several of the states have been active in regularly restocking, each season, certain streams with fry of edible and game fish.

Information concerning the open season can be obtained from the proper state officer. The fish and game laws are usually under the control of a commission with a secretary as the executive officer.