390 BOARD OF AGKICULTUKE. [Pub. Doc. 



attorney was responsible. The commissioner says, in his 

 last report: "The commissioner, or his attorneys, have no 

 more power over the case at this stage of proceeding than 

 any other citizen. All that they can do is to wait the 

 pleasure of the district attorney and the court. If these 

 officers decline to bring the cases before the grand jury and 

 list them for trial, the prosecution has no remedy. They 

 are eifectually blocked as to any further progress. All of 

 the cases that are now pending are in exactly this situation. 

 They have been urged as far as the commissioner and his 

 attorneys can prosecute them, and now it is simply a ques- 

 tion of when the courts will take them up." 



Another advantage of the Massachusetts system is that it 

 gives the prosecuting officer a more thorough familiarity with 

 every phase of his work than otherwise would be possible, 

 and it gives him a breadth of experience such as is vouch- 

 safed to few, if any, who hold similar positions in other 

 States. Take, for instance, the past year : the experience 

 of the o:eneral agent of the Bureau has included such an in- 

 vestigation of the methods and details of the imitation butter 

 business as has culminated in 178 cases for court ; it has also 

 included the actual trial of those cases in the lower courts, 

 and a very close touch with such as have been appealed to 

 the superior courts. This exceptional breadth of experience 

 is sometimes recognized in a way complimentary to the State 

 by calls upon him to address meetings out of the State 

 and to explain the work of the Bureau. Last summer he 

 represented the State and its agricultural department with 

 a paper at the Farmers' National Congress at Colorado 

 Springs (at his own expense). Later he was given an hon- 

 orable place on the programme at the national convention of 

 dairy and food departments of the different States, held at 

 Milwaukee, Wis. He was also emphatically urged to appear 

 before the committee on agriculture of the National Senate, 

 at a hearing on the Grout bill, to give some account of the 

 experiences of the Dairy Bureau in enforcing the imitation 

 butter laws of Massachusetts. These invitations he was 

 unable to accept, on account of other duties. We believe 

 that it is well for the Commonwealth to be represented oc- 

 casionally, within reasonable limits and when funds allow, 



