44 FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 



be put on the roll for this year. Whether they will do so 

 or not, I don't know, but I will work for it all over the 

 States. I believe it is just and right that bees be assessed, 

 but if you begin to change the assessment roll there is a 

 danger line. I believe it was in this State, four years ago, 

 that the question was brought up before the Board of Asses- 

 sors, and I was asked what we were doing in our State, and 

 I said bees are assessable property and so is poultry. I be- 

 lieve they are assessable, I don't know why they should not 

 be, but don't fight on account of the few pennies the taxes 

 amount to. It will help you. I tried in Wisconsin once to 

 make the foul brood expenses self-supporting in this way: 

 Have the State levy a tax of 2 cents on every colony as 

 a reserve fund ; in other words, let the bee-tax support their 

 own expense. The bee-keeper who was keeping over 50 

 colonies of bees wanted it passed, but the man who was 

 trying to keep a few bees in old boxes was fighting it, and 

 enough of those men responded to rule it out. I believe 

 in Colorado that they are supported by a tax in that way. 



Dr. Miller — I admire the common sense of Mr. France, 

 but I believe our law ought to be changed. Some time ago 

 when we were trying to get the law, I was told that we had 

 a foul brood law, and I quarreled over it a good deal and 

 then had to back down and say we had none. But we can't 

 change the law till we get the law. We had the appropria- 

 tion but we had no law that compels the suppression of foul 

 brood. Don't understand that I am undervaluing your taxes. 

 It paves the way to ask for a law to prevent foul brood, and 

 I am more thoroughly convinced in the belief that we need 

 a foul brood law than I was before. If Mr. France was 

 not backed with authority he would have been ordered away 

 in more cases than he was. We need, and I am only saying 

 it over again what Mr. France just said, if necessary to 

 make it stronger, that we need that power to let a man go 

 in and say, "I have a right to see if your bees have foul 

 brood," and I want to see every bee-keeper and every ex- 

 perienced man in America exceedingly anxious that there 

 should be a law for the suppression of foul brood, because 

 I don't want the disease in my bees and I want the law to 

 prevent its coming. It is not the man alone who has foul 

 brood that wants the law. He can cure it just as well with- 

 out it. It is the man without it that needs the law. There 

 has been too little feeling that we need that power. Now 

 the Legislature has said that money should be used to sup- 

 press foul brood. Now you can say. Will you give us money 

 or help; we want you to say that the inspector has power, 

 and till you give us that power we are seriously handicapped. 



Mr. Stone — As one of the members of the committee 

 that got that appropriation I would like just to say what we 

 have seen. Our chairman was along with us, and we failed 

 twice in getting the appropriation, and the stumbling block 

 was when a man gets up and says "personal liberty" in that 

 committee;^ "You are infringing on my personal liberty." We 

 heard that, and it was when we came to that clause where it 



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