Chapter 128

Section 2E. No owner, operator, or employee of a farm who allows any person to enter said farm for the purpose of agricultural harvesting, including the cutting of Christmas trees under a so-called ''pick-your-own'' agreement shall be liable for injuries or death to persons, or d…

Section 3. The department may collect all necessary information in regard to the opportunities for developing agricultural resources through the reoccupancy of idle or partly improved farms and farm land, and may cause the facts so obtained, and a statement of the advantages offe…

Section 30. All prosecutions under sections sixteen to twenty-seven, inclusive, section thirty-one and section thirty-one A shall be instituted and directed by the commissioner or by a person or persons specially designated for the purpose by him.

Section 31. Whenever the director finds that any town or part thereof is infested with the European corn borer or other insect pest, except the gypsy and brown tail moth, or with a plant disease which in his opinion is likely to spread to other parts of the commonwealth or to oth…

Section 31A. In any town or part thereof in which an order issued under section thirty-one in connection with the suppression of the European corn borer shall be in effect, every person in possession of land on which corn of any kind has been grown shall, except as hereinafter pr…

Section 32. There shall be within the department a full-time chief apiary inspector to perform the duties of the department relative to a program for the inspection and control of bees, as provided in sections thirty-two through thirty-eight, inclusive. Subject to appropriation, …

Section 33. No persons shall knowingly maintain a colony or colonies of honey bees in hives, other receptacles, trees or other lodging places in which brood combs are fastened to the container of the colony or cross-built. No person shall neglect, expose, sell, barter, give or in…

Section 34. The inspector or his assistants, upon the discovery of bee diseases or any comb cross-built or fastened to the container in any apiary or colony shall give instruction to the owner or caretaker thereof as to the treatment of the diseased and miskept colonies, infected…

Section 35. No colony of bees nor any used bee equipment shall be shipped or transported into or delivered in this commonwealth from any other state or country without a certificate, stating that the inspector of apiaries or other officer charged with similar duties in that state…

Section 36. The inspector or his assistants upon presentation of proper credentials of the department shall have access to each place where bees, bee supplies, appliances or equipment are kept and to each place where bees have lodged. No owner, renter, or keeper of beehives, used…

Section 36A. The inspector shall keep a detailed record of the number and location of all colonies inspected by him or his assistants, the number and location of all colonies found diseased, the treatment thereof, and expenditures incurred in the performance of the duties of his …

Section 36B. No person shall package, label, sell, keep for sale, expose or offer for sale, any article or product in imitation or semblance of honey branded as ''honey'', ''liquid or extracted honey'', ''strained honey'', ''imitation honey'' or ''pure honey'' which is not pure h…

Section 36C. No person shall manufacture, label, package, sell, keep for sale, expose or offer for sale any food article or food product branded as maple, maple syrup, maple candy, maple creams, maple butter, or maple sugar which is not made from pure maple syrup derived from the…

Section 38. Whoever violates section 33 or 35 shall be subject to a civil administrative penalty of not more than: (i) $30 for a first violation; (ii) $75 for a second violation; and (iii) $150 for each subsequent violation. Whoever violates section 36B or 36C shall be subject to…

Section 38A. The director of the division of fairs shall supervise the establishment and holding of fairs for the encouragement or extension of agriculture.

Section 38B. (a) There shall be established and set up on the books of the commonwealth a separate fund to be known as the Massachusetts State Exposition Building Maintenance Fund, the funds of which shall be expended solely for the purposes of upkeep, programming, promotion, mai…

Section 38C. The commissioner may develop a program to assist in the preservation and rehabilitation of facilities and land resources of agricultural fairs in the commonwealth through short-term preservation covenants, grants, demonstration projects and other means. The commissio…

Section 4. The department may take, and hold in trust, funds collected pursuant to marketing orders or agreements as set forth in sections one hundred and two through one hundred and fifteen of this chapter, and gifts and bequests to it for promoting agricultural education or the…

Section 40. In each county, except counties maintaining vocational agricultural schools, there shall be an unpaid board of nine trustees to be known as trustees for county cooperative extension service. The county commissioners of each such county except Suffolk, and the city cou…

Section 41. Choice of the directors mentioned in section forty shall be made in such towns by the board of selectmen, and in such cities by the mayor, not later than fifteen days following the vote authorizing the appropriation specified in section forty. The directors shall serv…

Section 42. For purposes specified in sections forty to forty-five, inclusive, the trustees may receive on behalf of the county money appropriated by any town or by the federal government, or grants made by any individual, trustee or trustees, association or corporation, and may …

Section 43. The trustees shall maintain one or more agents or instructors in agriculture, homemaking and country life, who shall meet the residents of the county individually and in groups for the purpose of teaching and demonstrating better practice in agriculture and homemaking…

Section 44. The trustees, except in Suffolk county, shall annually prepare and submit to the county commissioners, not later than the first Wednesday in December, a budget containing detailed estimates of all sums required by them for carrying out sections forty to forty-five, in…

Section 44A. The trustees in Suffolk county shall annually prepare and submit a budget containing detailed estimates of all sums required by them for carrying out sections forty to forty-five, inclusive, during the ensuing fiscal year. Said trustees in preparing their budget shal…

Section 45. Any town may acquire, by purchase or otherwise, in the manner in which land may be acquired for school purposes, real estate for the purpose of carrying on, under the direction of the agents or instructors of said trustees, demonstration work in agriculture and homema…

Section 46. Upon the application of the president of an incorporated agricultural or horticultural society to the authorities of a town where an exhibition of such society is to be held, such authorities shall assign for special service at such exhibition all police officers or c…

Section 47. Farmers' clubs which are organized and are holding regular meetings shall, upon application made annually in November to the commissioner, receive copies of the department's report and of its other publications, in proportion to the number of their members and to the …

Section 48. Each agricultural or horticultural society or farmers' club may establish such regulations, not inconsistent with law, as it considers necessary and expedient for the preservation of peace and good order or for the protection of its interests at its regular or annual …

Section 49. No person, during the time of holding a cattle show, fair or exhibition or meeting of a farmers' club and without the consent of the authorities having charge of the same, shall establish within one half mile of the place of holding such show, fair, exhibition or meet…

Section 5. The department shall make an annual report, including the number of agents, assistants and scientific experts employed in the various divisions together with their expenses and disbursements, of all investigations made by the department of all cases prosecuted with the…

Section 50. Whoever violates any provisions of the preceding section, or of a regulation established under section forty-eight, shall forfeit not more than twenty dollars.

Section 51. The following words as used in section fifty-two to section sixty-three, inclusive, unless a different meaning is required by the context, or is specifically described, shall have the following meanings:— ''Brand name'', any word, name, symbol or device, or any combin…

Section 52. Each commercial feed shall be registered before being distributed in the commonwealth; provided, however, that customer-formula feeds are exempt from registration. The application for registration shall be submitted on forms furnished by the commissioner or his deputy…

Section 53. All commercial feed distributed in the commonwealth except customer-formula feeds shall be accompanied by a legible label bearing the following information: (1) net weight; (2) name or brand under which the commercial feed is sold; (3) guaranteed analysis of the comme…

Section 54. A commercial feed shall be deemed to be adulterated: if (1) it bears or contains any poisonous or deleterious substance which may render it injurious to health; but in case the substance is not an added substance, such commercial feed shall not be considered adulterat…

Section 55. No person shall distribute feed if (a) its labeling is false or misleading in any particular manner; (b) it is distributed under the name of another feed; (c) it is not labeled as required in section fifty-three and in regulations promulgated by the commissioner; (d) …

Section 56. No person shall (a) manufacture or distribute any commercial feed that is adulterated or misbranded; (b) adulterate or misbrand any commercial feed; (c) distribute agricultural commodities which are adulterated within the meaning of section fifty-four; (d) remove or d…

Section 57. The commissioner and his duly authorized assistants shall have authority to enforce sections fifty-two to sixty, inclusive, and to prosecute all violations thereof. Before any prosecutions by the commissioner or any of his duly authorized assistants, the parties conce…

Section 58. The commissioner either in person or his assistants shall have free access at all reasonable hours to each building or other place in which commercial feeds are manufactured, processed, packed or held for distribution, or to enter any vehicle being used to transport o…

Section 59. Samples for analysis as stipulated in section fifty-eight shall be collected by the commissioner or his duly authorized deputy and shall be delivered to the Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station of the University of Massachusetts for analysis according to meth…

Section 6. The commissioner may arrange for lectures before the department, and may issue for general distribution such publications as he considers best adapted to promote the interests of agriculture including, but not limited to, reports, bulletins, special circulars, or other…

Section 60. When the commissioner or his deputy has reasonable cause to believe any lot of commercial feed is being distributed in violation of any of the provisions of sections fifty-two to fifty-eight, inclusive, or of any of the prescribed regulations promulgated thereunder, h…

Section 61. Whoever sells, offers or exposes for sale any commercial feed or mixture thereof without complying with the requirements of sections fifty-two to sixty, inclusive, applicable thereto, or in violation of any rule or regulation promulgated thereunder, or whoever falsely…

Section 62. The commissioner or his deputy may publish annually, in such forms as he may deem proper, information concerning the sales of commercial feeds; together with such data on their production, composition and use as he may consider advisable, and a report of the results o…

Section 63. The commissioner may prescribe and enforce such rules and regulations relative to the sale of commercial feed as he deems necessary to enforce sections fifty-two to sixty-two, inclusive.

Section 64. As used in sections sixty-five to eighty-three, inclusive, the following words shall have the following meanings:— ''Agricultural lime'', all the various forms of lime intended or sold for fertilizing purposes or neutralizing acidity. ''Available phosphoric acid'', th…