No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 2^:. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION. 



BY Hon. JA.SON SEXTON, Chairman. 



Again your Legislative Committee presents its annual report for 

 jour consideration. In so doing we find that we shall, in some 

 instances, make recommendations of measures that have been con- 

 sidered by you, and met j'our approval at former meetings of the 

 Board, and up to the present time have failed to become laws- 

 some by reason of failing to receive the constitutional majority 

 on final passage, while others failed to receive executive approval 

 after having passed finally. So, undaunted by failure, we shall 

 again, with your approval, appear, by petition at least, before our 

 lawmakers as the humble suppliants of their favor, trusting we 

 shall be heard, and that some good may come to the agricultural 

 classes through our efforts in this direction. 



We fully appreciate the good work done by the Legislature of 

 1901, not only for the public generally, but more especially for 

 the agricultural classes, when they passed, among other bills, the 

 amended oleomargarine bill, the amended pure food 1-aw, the 

 amended vinegar law, the amended renovated butter law and the 

 new law regulating the manufacture and sale of commercial fer- 

 tilizers and some others of more or less importance to the farmers 

 of the State. Among the first of these bills that failed to pass, 

 and that we considcu' of the utmost importance, is the amended act 

 of 1897 (known as the '-Hamilton Road Bill") by providing for and 

 making an appropriation for the building and improvement of our 

 roads that would place the law in active operation, which is now, 

 as it stands, wholly inoperative. 



Your committee, as well as yourselves, knowing the many ob- 

 stacles in the vC'ay of securing annual appropriations which woulfl 

 be absolutely necessary when this law once becomes operative, 

 would recommend and urge that a public road fund be created, 

 by asking the Legislature to place an addition tax of one mill, to 

 be collected under existing laws, on all corporate and personal prop- 



