Sec. 5.
The commissioner is hereby authorized and empowered to promulgate by letter, publication, poster or other means, information concerning the white pine blister rust and to designate by the aforesaid means of promulgation blister rust control areas within the state in which control measures are necessary or advisable. In designating fruiting currant and gooseberry control areas, the commissioner shall use due care to fix their boundaries so as to include areas where currants and gooseberries are grown on a commercial scale and where their value for this purpose is clearly greater than the use of the area for the production of white pine. In designating white pine blister rust control areas, the commissioner shall use due care to fix their boundaries so as to protect white pines on such areas from damage by white pine blister rust. It shall be the duty of every land owner within such designated areas to carry out such control measures as are ordered by the commissioner, including the removal and destruction of any or all wild and cultivated currants and gooseberries or white pines. No currants or gooseberries shall be planted within such white pine blister rust control areas without written permission from the commissioner. No white pines shall be planted within such fruiting currant or gooseberry control areas without written permission of the commissioner. If the owner fails to destroy the above named plants within the time specified by the commissioner, the commissioner shall cause said plants to be destroyed and the expense thereof shall be a lien upon the owner's land. Such lien shall have the same effect and may be collected in the same manner as taxes upon such land. Any moneys so collected shall be paid into the state treasury and credited to the fund provided for this work.
History: 1929, Act 313, Imd. Eff. May 24, 1929 ;-- CL 1929, 5135 ;-- CL 1948, 286.105