The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-11-15
Illinois Furnishes the Standard
For State Laws
Relating to Regulations of
Warehouses and Elevators.
A DIGEST PREPARED.
Industrial Commission Complies
Important Data.
Boards of Agriculture and
Farmers Institutes.

Washington Nov 15-The industrial
commission has prepared and will pub
lish soon digest of the laws of the
several states relating to boards of ag-
riculture, farmers institutes, and so
forth.
Summarizing the practice in the Sc
lection of commissioners of agriculture,
agricultural boards. ETC.. the COM
mission says:
Organizations for the promotion of
agriculture, maintained either in whole
or in part by the state governments.
are found in nearly every state in the
Union. State boards of agriculture,
the most common form of organization
for that purpose esta blished by law
and maintained at public expense, are
found in about half the states The
other typical form is a department.. or
bureau of agriculture, presided over by
a single officer, usually designated as
commissioner of agriculture. In several
cases however, this officer combines a
number of functions and his bureau is
known as the bureau of agriculture
and immigra ton; the bureau of agrl-
culture, labor and industry; the bureau
of agriculture statistics and mines, or
the like. These commissioners are
found chiefly in the south but also in
Maine Washington and North Dakota,
while in Pennsylvania there is de-
partment of the state government pre-
sided over by a secretary of agriculture.
Finally in Wisconsin, Minnesota and
Iowa. the place of a board of agricul-
ture is filled to greater or less extent
by the executive committee of board of
directors managers of the state ag-
ricultural society; and in Utah a SINH
lar arrangement is in effect, with the
directors of the Deseret Agricultural
and Manufacturing society.
1.-The principal mode of designating the
members of state boards of agriculture
are election by state and local agricu1-
tural societies or their delegates and
appointment by the governor. usually
subject to confirmation by the upper
house of the Legislature. In some states
the two methods are combined q part
of the members being appointed by the
executive and a part being chosen by
agricultural societies. 1t is common
also for certain officials to be designa-
ted members of the board ex-officio, the
governor and the president of the state
agricultural college being often so des-
ignated. In a few states the members
of the state board are elected at an
nual meetings by delegates from local
societies, who are declared to be for the
time being ex-officio members of the
board itself, while in New Jersey all
the members of all the agricultural and
and oranges in the state, are declared
to be mem bers of the state board of agri-
culture. In several cases the members
of the boards of agriculture are re-
quired to be appointed from more than
one political party The commissioners
of agriculture in some states are elect
ed by the people like other state off,
GERS; in other cases they are appointed
by the executive
1.-THE members of the state boards of
f0111f1
compensation, other than the expenses
incident upon attending the meetings
and performing their official duties. The
actual executive work is usually in
charge of a salaried secretary chosen
by the board, in some instances from
its own number. The functions of this
officer therefore correspond somewhat
closely to those of the commissioner of
agriculture in the states having such
official. In some states there are both
a state board of agriculture and a COM
missioner of agriculture, who acts as
it's executive officer, while in Kentucky
the commissioner of agriculture. labor
and statistics is assisted by an advisory
board.
The commission is also preparing a
digest of laws and court decisions re-
lating to grain inspection, elevators and
warehouses. The introduction to this
publication is by Mr. Robert Christy,
of the Washington bar, who says:
'In all of the states that have at
tempted to form complete and perfect
system for the regulation of public ele-
vatOrS and public warehouses, there is
a very conSiderab BILE similarity in the
leading features of the laws composing
such system, which differ but little in
the powers conferred upon the execu-
tive officers and in the duties imposed
upon the warehousemen, but chiefly in
the mode of selection of such officers
and their designations.
TT is to be presumed, too, that this
similarity is at least partly due to the
fact that the system adopted by the
state of Illinois, the Oldest of these
states, and with city most advan-
tageOusly situated for the reception and
reshipment of grain and commodities
of all kinds produced in the northwest,
was selected as the common standard
of imitation, departures from this COM
mon standard being due to the special
conditions of environment existing in
the various states.
After long experience in selecting
the officers having control of the inspec-
ton of grain and the supervision of
condition and management of public
warehouses and by appointment of the
governor, by and with the advice and
consent of the senate, some of the states
require such officers to be chosen by
the qualified electors, as other state Off
GERS are chosen. One state has gone so
far as to extend to the recognized po-
litical parties by statute the privilege
of putting the candidates in nomina-
ton as for other state officers
Fort Scott Must Pay.