LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,

BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY, Washington, D. C., November 21, 1990.

SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith, and recommend for publication as a bulletin of this Bureau, a manuscript entitled "National and State Dairy Laws," prepared by Mr. R. A. Pearson, assistant chief of the Dairy Division. This manuscript contains brief abstracts of all National and State dairy laws now in force and the full texts of those which have been enacted since 1898. The laws then in force were published in the Fourteenth Annual Report of this Bureau. There has been considerable dairy legislation during the past few years, and in this connection numerous requests for information as to the laws of the various States have been received. This bulletin will assist in answering such inquiries, and will be especially useful in States where it is proposed to enact new dairy laws during the coming session of the legislatures.

Respectfully,

D. E. SALMON,
Chief of Bureau.

Hon. JAMES WILSON,

Secretary.

CONTENTS.

Introduction

Principal subjects on which dairy laws have been enacted.

State standards for dairy products...

Page.

5

6

8

INTRODUCTION.

Abstracts and full texts of all national and State laws applying to dairy products and their imitations were published in 1898 in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Animal Industry, and later reprinted in separate form. The call for such information was much larger than had been anticipated and necessitated a second reprint. Since that compilation was made there has been considerable new legislation on the subject, and this has required replying to many inquiries by letters to supplement the printed volume. It now seems advisable to show all the changes that have been made and the new laws that have been enacted.

In the last two years new dairy laws have been passed in twenty States, the most common subject of legislation being renovated butter, the manufacture of which has rapidly increased; it is customary to permit it if plainly labeled. In some States the dairy laws have been repealed and reenacted with slight changes, and it would be well if the same were done in some other States where the laws are unnecessarily numerous and bulky. Only a few laws or parts of laws have been repealed by name. Usually new laws "repeal all acts or parts of acts in conflict," and this often leaves the compiler in doubt as to whether an old law is still operative or not; in some cases it might require a court decision to determine the point. When there is doubt as to whether or not a law is in force, it is printed in full.

It is believed this compilation is complete, though some laws of a general nature referring indirectly to dairy products may have been overlooked and omitted. In each case the names of the acts have been referred to the State officer especially charged with their enforcement or, where there is no such officer, to the secretary of state, with request that any omissions or corrections be noted. It has been chosen to include some laws which refer but remotely to dairying rather than risk omitting any that might be of interest in this connection.

As in the 1898 compilation the table and abstracts are arranged in the following order: State dairy officials, milk, butter, cheese, imitation butter, imitation cheese, miscellaneous, pure food. It is obviously impossible to arrange the full laws in the same way. As the laws which were printed in 1898 are given here by reference only it is an easy matter to find and examine the latest dairy legislation.

It is hoped this revised compilation and the abstracts will be useful where new dairy laws are needed, as well as where those now on the statute books are not as generally known as they should be; also that it will emphasize the need of clearer legislation in some States where it is evident that the dairy interests have not been protected as was apparently intended by those who passed the laws now in force.

PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS ON WHICH DAIRY LAWS HAVE [Numbers in the first column show the pages of this bulletin where brief abstracts of the laws full on the subjects named at the heads of the columns. The plain figures refer to pages in bulletin. D. Defined only. P. Must be colored pink. A plus mark (+) following a page