(a) Definition. An agricultural or horticultural corporation or society is a corporation formed under or by a general or special law for promoting agriculture, horticulture and the mechanic arts.
(b) Type of corporation. An agricultural or horticultural corporation is a non-charitable corporation under this chapter, except that any such corporation which has received moneys from the state or has acted as agent for the state under paragraph (c) of this section, or has acquired or does acquire real property by condemnation is or becomes a charitable corporation under this chapter.
(c) Condemnation. In case any agricultural or horticultural corporation or any other agricultural society which has received moneys from the state for premiums paid for improving the breed of cattle, sheep and horses, or has acted as agent for the state in disbursing moneys for such purpose can not acquire real property needed for its corporate purposes upon satisfactory terms, it may acquire such real property by condemnation. Any real property acquired by condemnation, or otherwise, shall not be subject to condemnation by any other private corporation except a railroad corporation.
(d) Report of corporation receiving aid; disposition of property. Any county agricultural corporation receiving after May tenth, nineteen hundred and twenty, money from any county shall, through its secretary, make annually to the board of supervisors a detailed statement with vouchers showing the disbursement during the year of all moneys so received. If such a corporation shall cease to exist, or without satisfactory reason shall fail or neglect to hold its annual exhibitions or fairs for a period of two years, the board of supervisors on notice to the corporation may petition the supreme court of the judicial district or the county court of the county to declare a forfeiture to the county of the real and personal property of the corporation in whole or in part or to confer on the county a lien upon such property, whereupon such court may make a decree determining the legal or equitable rights of the county in such property subject to the rights of creditors of the corporation.
(e) Restrictions on the formation of corporations. There shall be but one county corporation in a county, and but one town corporation in a town, except that a second corporation may be formed if it is to be the surviving corporation under a plan of merger with the existing corporation, in which event, the certificate of incorporation of such second corporation shall have endorsed thereon or annexed thereto the approval of a justice of the supreme court of the judicial district in which the office of such corporation is to be located. Ten days written notice of the application for such approval, accompanied by a copy of the proposed certificate, shall be given to the attorney general. Whenever a new county shall be or shall have been erected out of a part of an existing county in which a county corporation existed at the time of the erection of such new county, the existing corporation may at its option be continued as the county corporation of both counties. The determination of an existing corporation to be continued as a county corporation for both counties shall be evidenced by a certificate thereof, signed and acknowledged by a majority of the directors, and filed in the office of the secretary of state and in the office of the clerk of each of such counties. A town corporation may be formed for several towns, but the formation of such corporation shall not prevent the formation of a separate town corporation for any such town.
(f) Annual fairs and premiums. Every agricultural or horticultural 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 corporations and societies shall regulate and award premiums on such articles, productions and improvements as they deem best calculated to promote the agricultural, horticultural, mechanic and domestic arts of the state, having special reference to the net profits which accrue or are likely to accrue from the mode of raising crops, or stock, or fabricating the articles exhibited, so that the award be made to the most economical or profitable mode of production. A county or town corporation, 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, may fix the place where the annual fair and exhibition of the corporation shall be held.
(g) Regulation of shows on exhibition grounds. Any agricultural or horticultural corporation, or the executive committee of such board, 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 on such fair grounds, and also within a distance of two hundred yards of the fair grounds of the corporation, if it shall determine that they obstruct or interfere with the free and uninterrupted use of the highways around and approaching such fair grounds.
(h) Capital stock. An agricultural or horticultural corporation may have capital stock aggregating not less than five thousand dollars, divided into shares of not less than ten dollars each, and may issue such certificates at not less than the par value thereof to raise money for its corporate purposes, if provision therefor is made in its certificate of incorporation or in a certificate filed pursuant to section 803 (Certificate of amendment; contents). An agricultural or horticultural corporation, which has issued or shall hereafter issue capital stock, entitling its shareholders to dividends from the profits of the corporation, shall be subject to the business corporation law and not to the provisions of this chapter in conflict therewith.
(i) Annual report. On or before December fifteenth in each year, the directors of every agricultural or horticultural corporation shall make a verified report to the commissioner of agriculture and markets of the transactions of the corporation for the preceding twelve months giving full details of the receipts and expenditures thereof, with a list of premiums awarded and to whom and for what awarded.
(j) Membership in state society. The presidents of the county agricultural corporations, or delegates to be chosen by such corporations annually, shall be ex officio members of the New York state agricultural society.
(k) Exhibitions and entertainments on fair grounds to be exempt from license. The provisions of any special or local law or municipal ordinance, requiring the payment of a license fee for exhibitions or entertainments or requiring that an approval be obtained from any local government except an approval required to protect the safety, health and well-being of persons, shall not apply to any exhibition or entertainment held on the grounds of a town or county corporation whether or not the corporation derives a pecuniary profit from such exhibition or entertainment by the lease of its grounds for such purpose and the provisions of any special or local law or municipal ordinance shall not be construed or applied to unreasonably prohibit or restrict any agricultural or horticultural corporation receiving reimbursement pursuant to article twenty-four of the agriculture and markets law from the construction, improvement, renovation, relocation or demolition of all or any of such agricultural or horticultural corporation grounds, buildings and facilities.