440 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



office a clerk receives a complaint, he should issue his own 

 warrant and not the warrant of the court ; in the latter 

 case it is claimed that the warrant is issued before the com- 

 plaint is received by the authority issuing the warrant. A 

 large number of appealed cases are tied up, awaiting this 

 decision. 



In the perjury case alluded to in our report of last year 

 the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to a term of 

 imprisonment, which he is now serving. 



Butter, — Renovated. 



The law requiring renovated butter to be branded or la- 

 belled with its distinctive name is largely a dead letter. This 

 is through no difficulty in enforcing the law, for chemists can 

 easily distinguish renovated butter from normal butter and 

 from imitation butter. The difficulty is wholly with the 

 amount of money which the Legislature allows us to expend. 

 This amount is not enough even to permit us to do as thor- 

 oughly as we would like the work entrusted to us before the 

 renovated butter law was enacted. The milk inspector of 

 Lowell has had one case which has been pushed to a satisfac- 

 tory conclusion in district and superior court ; so far as we 

 know, this is the only case that has been tried. 



As to the desirability of such a law, opinions differ. The 

 wholesalers generally view it with disfavor, and will ask the 

 Legislature to repeal it. This renovated butter question is 

 rapidly increasing in importance, for the commodity is be- 

 coming a staple article of merchandise, and is coming into 

 general use. Almost every store has it, and it has become 

 an important article in the trade. For a second-quality but- 

 ter it has much to commend it, and it is much better than 

 could be secured as such before the process of butter reno- 

 vating became common. If it were sold under its true colors, • 

 — and that is all the law requires, — it would be a valuable 

 article of commerce. Renovation is always commendable, 

 whether in butter or human beings. Improvement is prog- 

 ress. To take low-grade butter, which would be almost un- 

 merchantable, and renovate it so that it will stand almost in 

 the front rank is a praiseworthy act. But experience and 



