Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/370

366 of cotton ginned by them, in figures at least four inches in height. It was required that the net weight of the contents be stamped upon bags, barrels and packages of fertilizers.

Utah in 1911 passed a law general in its terms but very incomplete in its provisions, making the state food and dairy commissioner ex-officio state sealer of weights and measures and giving him the power and making it his duty to try and prove all apparatus in use in the state, except in cities having a city sealer. No compulsory local supervision is provided for. Three other laws were passed at the 1913 session of the legislature, the most important one being a net weight law with reference to food in package form, which follows very closely the wording of the amendment to the national law on this subject. The other two laws have reference to the collection of freight charges on cars of coal and the weighing of coal in carload lots; the object of the laws is to ascertain the net weight of the coal, it being provided among other things that the cars shall be weighed before and after being loaded with coal.

Vermont enacted a general law in 1910 providing for a state supervision of weights and measures and authorizing but not making obligatory local supervision, also. This legislation was very satisfactory as far as it went. Subsequently it was amended and strengthened in several particulars. The state department of weights and measures now has specific jurisdiction over the scales used by common carriers; is empowered to seize, for use as evidence, commodities, packages or other articles offered for sale in a manner contrary to law; and is required to pay particular attention to the weights and measures used in creameries. The intentional misrepresentation by the buyer of the amount of commodity purchased is made a punishable offense; and the section relating to the legal weights per bushel was greatly amplified and strengthened.

In 1911 Washington enacted legislation requiring railroad companies to have track scales, and to furnish, jointly, a test car or other device for the use of the Railroad Commission in testing track scales, the railroad companies being required to move the car free of charge. In 1913 there was enacted legislation providing for a state-wide inspection of the weights and measures in commercial use, this law containing most of the provisions of the model law recommended by the National Conference on Weights and Measures. The state inspectors are put in the department of the secretary of state, this official being made ex-officio superintendent of weights and measures. The actual work will be taken care of by a deputy superintendent and one inspector. City sealers are required to be appointed in all cities of the first class, while in the counties the auditors are made sealers, ex-officio. As in the case of the state, a deputy sealer is required to be appointed in each county, having the same powers as the auditor in respect to this Act, and upon these officials will fall the duty of seeing to the enforcement of the law. In addition to the sections taken from the model law, the manner of sale of butter,