14 



Sec. 6. Any person that shall knowingly buy for the purpose of selling, or shall 

 sell or offer for sale, any fruit from such diseased trees, shall be fined not less than 

 ten nor more than one hundred dollars. 



Sec. 7. For the purpose of investigation or for the purpose of destroying trees or 

 fruit known to be diseased, the said commissioner and his deputies may enter ainy 

 premises, and any person who shall prevent or attempt to prevent such entry shall 

 be punished by a fine of not less than ten nor more than one hundred dollars, or 

 imprisoned in a common jail not less than ten nor more than sixty days, or both. 



Sec. 8. Prosecutions for violation of this act maybe brought before justices of 

 the peace, or any city, borough, town, police, or common pleas court having crimi- 

 nal jurisdiction, by any prosecuting officer, or by the commissioner on peach yel- 

 lows, or any of his deputies, and for such purpose said commissioner and his deputies 

 shall have all the powers of grand jurors. 



Sec. 9. This act shall take effect upon its passage. 



Approved, June 14. 



l.A\VS OF DEr.AWARE. 



AN ACT to protect the peach orchards of lower Delaware from the disease known as peach yellows. 



Be it enacted hy the senate and house of representatives of the State of Delaware in 

 general asscmhly met: 



Section 1. That it shall be unlawful for any person or persons to keep any peach, 

 almond, apricot, or nectarine tree infected with the contagious disease known as the 

 yellows, in this State south of a line beginning in the village of Whiteleysburg and 

 at the dividing line between Delaware and Maryland, and running thence in about 

 an easterly course and following the most direct public road to the village of Hol- 

 landsville, thence in about the same course and following the most direct public road 

 to the town of Felton, thence in the same course through said town of Felton follow- 

 ing the main street thereof, thence still in about an easterly course and following the 

 most direct public road to the town of Frederica, thence continuing through the said 

 town of Frederica in about the same course but following the street that leads past 

 the Methodist Church of said town until it reaches Murderkill Creek, and thence fol- 

 lowing the course of said Murderkill Creek until it reaches the Delaware Bay;^ that 

 all of said trees so infected shall be subject to destruction as common nuisances, as 

 hereinafter provided, and no damages shall be awarded in any court in this State for 

 entering upon j)remise8 and destroying such diseased trees if done in accordance with 

 the provisions of this act ; and it shall be the duty of every person as soon as he 

 becomes aware of the existence of such disease in any tree owned by him to effectu- 

 ally destroy or cause the same to be destroyed. 



Sec. 2. In any hundred in this State south or partly south of the line mentioned 

 in section 1 of this act, in which such disease exists, or in which there is good reason 

 to believe it exists, or danger may justly be apprehended of its introduction, as soon 

 as such information is communicated to the governor of this State by a notice signed 

 by ten or more freeholders and peach growers of said hundred, it shall become the 

 duty of the governor to appoint forthwith three competent freeholders and peach 

 growers of said hundred as commissioners, who shall hold office for the period of six 

 months from the date of their appointment. 



Sec. 3. It shall be the duty of the commissioners within five days after their appoint- 

 ment to notify the governor of their acceptance of their appointment, and in case of the 

 nonacceptance of one or more of said commissioners within the said five days, or in case 

 of a vacancy or vacancies in the said board on account of the refusal of one or more of 



1 In that part of Delaware south of this line the orchards were nearly free from disease, while to the 

 north nearly every orchard was affected. The result of this condition was a sharp fight in the assem- 

 bly, memljers from the northern part of the State opposing a yellows law and those from the southern 

 part urging it. The result was this compromise. 



