46 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



by local assessors, which had been proposed in preceding years, 

 was proposed again in a new form (House Document No. 

 756). This was done partly at the request of the local rep- 

 resentative of the Bureau of Crop Estimates of the Federal 

 Department of Agriculture, and partly because the Department 

 believed it desirable to secure more information about agricul- 

 tural conditions in the State and to establish the collection of 

 such information upon a systematic basis. This bill was re- 

 ported favorably by the Committee on Agriculture, but was 

 referred to the next General Court upon the recommendation 

 of the Committee on Ways and Means. 



The Department also proposed two bills to provide for the 

 sale at cost of posters warning against trespass on farm and 

 forest land, and against thefts of poultry. The former type of 

 posters is much the more important, and the action upon them 

 is described elsewhere in this report. The posters required to 

 be printed to warn against thefts of poultry, which were made 

 up almost entirely of a reprint of the law on this subject, were 

 not in demand, and wheii it was suggested by the Committee 

 on Ways and Means that it might be desirable to repeal the 

 law requiring that such posters be printed, the Department 

 agreed to this action. A bill to provide for such repeal was 

 accordingly passed and became chapter 231 of the Acts of 

 1920. 



Beside the bills which it initiated on its own account were 

 other bills of interest to agriculture which the Department 

 followed and in some cases actively favored or opposed. The 

 most important of these were the group of bills to provide 

 for daylight saving, which are dealt with in another section 

 of this report. Other important bills may be thus sum- 

 marized : — 



House Document No. 401 was a resolve to provide for an investigation 

 of the agricultural resources of the Commonwealth. This bill was believed 

 by the Department to be unnecessary, because existing law gives the 

 Department sufficient authority to make such an investigation if money 

 is provided for the purpose. The Department believes that a systematic 

 investigation of such resources should be made, but not by an independent 

 authority. 



House Document No. 1329 was a bill to establish a Massachusetts 

 standard for bushel and half-bushel boxes. This bill was introduced late, 



