54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Massachusetts. These are the Massachusetts farmland bank 

 law and the apple-grading law. The former provides the 

 farmer an opportunity he has never had before, namely, that of 

 paying off a mortgage by installments over a space of thirty or 

 thirty-five years. A fixed amount of money is paid each year, 

 thus liquidating the principal and meeting at the same time the 

 costs and interest on the money borrowed. 



The apple-grading law is an act to regulate the grading, 

 packing, marking, shipping and sale of apples in closed 

 packages. It applies to all apples in closed packages grown, 

 packed or repacked in Massachusetts, and intended for sale 

 either within or without the State, and also to apples grown in 

 other States, when such apples are packed and handled as 

 conforming to the Massachusetts standard. The law fixes a 

 standard for barrels, which is the same as the United States 

 standard, and a standard for boxes, uniform with standards of 

 the principal apple-growing States; it defines a closed package; 

 it establishes three standard grades, and provides that all 

 apples sold in closed packages not conforming to these three 

 grades, or, if conforming, not branded in accordance therewith, 

 shall be deemed "ungraded," and so marked; it requires every 

 closed package of apples packed or repacked within the State 

 to be marked in a conspicuous place with certain information 

 as to its contents; it specifies that closed packages containing 

 apples packed or repacked without the State, to be sold within 

 the State as of a Massachusetts standard grade, shall not be 

 falsely marked; it authorizes the secretary of the State Board 

 of Agriculture to make and publish rules and regulations for 

 carrying out the provisions of the act; it empowers the said 

 secretary and deputies to enter any building or other place 

 where apples are packed, stored, sold or offered or exposed for 

 sale, and to open any closed package, and, upon tendering the 

 market price, to take samples therefrom; it provides a maxi- 

 mum penalty of S50 for the first offence and a maximum 

 penalty of $100 for subsequent violations of the law, but 

 exempts from prosecution any person who appears to have 

 acted in good faith solely as a distributor, or who can furnish 

 a guaranty from the person from whom he received the apples 

 that they are not adulterated or misbranded. 



