Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/365

Rh enforce the weights and measures laws. Fees are to be collected for all work done and these fees are to be kept by the officials for their own use, no other compensation for the performance of the duties specified being provided. The only state standards required to be procured and kept are weights of specified sizes, although in a later section "all weights and measures accepted and used by the government of the United States at the present time, except herein provided" are standardized. The only commercial apparatus required to be tested and sealed are scales; weights, measures of capacity and length and measuring apparatus of all kinds being entirely neglected in this connection. All berries sold in boxes must be sold in boxes containing a standard liquid quart or liquid pint, and boxes of all other sizes must be labeled with their net contents. New Mexico has evidently followed the lead of Kansas in this matter, although such a provision is one of the most regrettable ones which could be included in a state law.

New York continued the good work which it commenced several years ago, and added to its excellent code of laws a very strong coal law, and a law making the possession or use of any false apparatus presumptive evidence of the knowledge of the user of its falsity. A law was recently passed requiring that all meat, meat products and butter shall be sold by weight, and that other commodities shall be sold by weight, standard measure or by numerical count, and that this amount must be marked on a label or tag attached thereto. The law further fixed the sizes of containers for vegetables, produce and fruit and provided that when these were sold in other than standard sizes the amount contained in these packages should be marked or branded conspicuously in terms of standard dry measure on the outside of the package. And it is also specified that when commodities are sold in containers of other sizes than those fixed by law the net quantity of the contents of each container, or a statement that the specified weight includes the container, the weight of which shall be plainly and conspicuously marked, branded or otherwise indicated on the outside or top thereof or a tag attached thereto, in terms of weight, measure or numerical count. During the 1913 session another law was passed standardizing the dimensions of four-eight-and twenty-pound baskets for use in the sale of grapes and provides that grape baskets of all other sizes must bear a statement of the net quantity of their contents in terms of weight, measure or numerical count. The section of the present code of laws relating to the marking of bales of hay and straw was strengthened by an amendment.

North Dakota took an important forward step by requiring that lard put up in pails or other containers should not only be marked with the net weight of the contents, but should also be put up in one, three or five-pound net-weight containers or some whole multiple of