ration law and the general corporation law, and not to the provisions of this chapter. ARTICLE XII. AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL CORPORATIONS. SECTION 140. Certificate of incorporation. 141. Restrictions on the formation of corporations. 142. Annual fairs and premiums. 143. Police and magistrates on exhibition grounds. 145. Annual report. 146. Membership in state society. 147. Laws repealed. 148. When to take effect. $140. Certificate of incorporation.-Ten or more persons may form a county or town agricultural corporation for promoting agriculture, horticulture and the mechanic arts, by making, acknowledging and filing a certificate, stating the particular objects for which the corporation is to be created; the territory in which its operations are to be conducted; the town, village or city in which its principal office is to be located; the number of its directors, not less than six or more than twelve; the names of the persons to be its directors until its first annual meeting; and the times for holding its annual meetings. Such certificate shall not be filed without the approval, indorsed thereupon or annexed thereto, of a justice of the supreme court. On filing such certificate, in pursuance of law, the signers thereof, their associates and successors, shall be a corporation in accordance with the provisions of such certificate. 141. Restrictions on the formation of corporations.-There shall be but one county society in a county, and but one town society in a town. Whenever a new county shall be or shall have been erected out of a part of an existing county in which a county society existed at the time of the erection of such new county, such existing society may at its option be continued as the joint society of the new and the old county and its rights and liabilities shall be the same as if the new county had not been erected. The determination of an existing society to be continued as a joint society for such counties shall be evidenced by a certificate thereof, signed and acknowledged by a majority of the directors, Agricultural and Horticultural Corporations. §§ 142-143 and filed in the office of the secretary of state and in the clerk's office of each of such counties. A joint society may be formed for two, three or four towns, but the formation of such society shall not prevent the formation of separate town societies for such towns. (As amended by chap. 104 of 1899.) § 142. Annual fairs and premiums.-Every such corporation, the American Institute in the city of New York, and the New York State Agricultural society, shall hold annual fairs and exhibitions, and distribute premiums. Such a county or town corporation may, by a two-thirds vote of the members present and voting at a regular meeting, or at a special meeting, duly called for that purpose, fix the place where the annual fair and exhibition of the corporation shall be held. Such corporations and societies shall regulate and award premiums on such articles, productions and improvements as they deem best calculated to promote the agricultural and household manufacturing interests of the state, having special reference to the net profits which accrue or are likely to accrue from the mode of raising the crop, or stock, or fabricating the article exhibited, so that the award be given to the most economical or profitable mode of production. (As amended by chap. 476 of 1896, § 1.) § 143. Police and magistrates on exhibition grounds.-The board of directors of any such corporation or the executive committee of such board may appoint a chief of police and as many citizens of this state as may be necessary to act as policemen at their exhibitions. The chief of police may also while acting as such appoint such additional policemen as he may deem advisable. Such chief of police and policemen shall preserve order within and for a space of two hundred yards from and around the grounds of the corporation, protect the property within such grounds and space, and eject all persons improperly therein, or acting disorderly therein, or who neglect or refuse to pay the entrance fee or observe the rules prescribed by the corporation. Any of such officers may arrest without a warrant, any person whom he has reasonable cause to believe has unlawfully and fraudulently entered the exhibition grounds of such corporation without paying the entrance fee therefor. They shall have the same power within such grounds and space, during the time such exhibition continues, and for twentyfour hours thereafter, that a constable has by law, in serving criminal process, making arrests and preserving the peace. No town or county shall be liable to pay any such policeman for services rendered under this section. Such corporations may regulate or prevent all kinds of theatrical, or circus, exhibitions and shows, huckstering and traffic in fruits, goods, wares and merchandise, of whatever description, and shall prevent all kinds of mountebank exhibitions or shows, for gain on the fair days and within a distance of two hundred yards of the fair grounds of such cor poration, as it deems the same to obstruct or in any way interfere with the free and uninterrupted use of the highways around and approaching such fair grounds. A justice of the peace of the county in which such grounds are situated, may, while upon such grounds, hold a court of special sessions, having the same duties, powers and jurisdictions over offenses committed upon such grounds and within two hundred yards of the boundaries thereof, as is had by a court of special sessions of a town of such county over offenses committed in the town. The fines and penalties received by a justice of the peace under this section shall, before the close of the fair or exhibition at which the same are received, be handed over by him to such society, for its use, together with a written report of his proceedings during such fair or exhibition. The report shall be in all respects the same as an annual account rendered for services in criminal proceedings by a justice of the peace of a town to the board of town auditors. The justice shall receive as compensation for his services under this section his legal fees to be paid by such society. The justice shall include in his annual report to the board the offenses committed and the proceedings had under this section, and the disposition made by him of fines and penalties collected. The justice shall enter in his regular criminal docket the full proceedings of all matters coming before him under this section, stating each case separately; and the record of such proceedings shall be kept open for public inspection upon such grounds during such fair or exhibition. (As amended by chap. 333 of 1900.) § 144. Capital stock.-Such a corporation may, by a majority vote of the members thereof present and voting at a regular or regularly called meeting, and by filing a certificate to that effect in the county clerk's office of the county where its certificate of incorporation is filed, fix the amount of capital stock which such corporation shall have, not more than forty thousand, nor less than five thousand dollars, divide the same into shares of not less than ten dollars each, and issue such shares at not less than the par value thereof, to raise money for the purposes for which the corporation was created. An agricultural corporation incorporated under this chapter or a law repealed hereby, which has issued or shall hereafter issue capital stock, entitling the holders of the shares thereof to dividends from the profits of the corporation, shall be subject to the business corporations law, the stock corporation law and the general corporation law, and not Agricultural and Horticultural Corporations. SS 145-148 to the provisions of this article in conflict therewith, nor to article one of this chapter. § 145. Annual report. The directors of such a corporation, on or before February first in each year, shall make a verified report to the secretary of the New York State agricultural society of the transactions of the corporation for the preceding year, giving full details of the receipts and expenditures thereof, with a list of premiums awarded and to whom and for what awarded. § 146. Membership in State society. The presidents of the county agricultural association corporations, incorporated under this chapter, or under a law repealed thereby, or delegates to be chosen by such associations annually, shall be ex officio members of the New York State agricultural society. 147. Laws repealed. Of the laws enumerated in the schedule hereto annexed that portion specified in the last column is repealed. § 148. When to take effect.—This chapter shall take effect on September first, eighteen hundred and ninety-five. SCHEDULE OF LAWS REPEALED. |