Chap. 620.—An ACT to encourage immigration into the commonwealth of
Virginia, and to promote sales of lands within the commonwealth to immi-
grants.

Approved March 5, 1894.

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That it
shall be lawful for ten or more persons owning land in any county
of the state to make, sign, seal, acknowledge and put to record in
the clerk’s office of the court of such county a paper writing in form
or to the effect, as follows:

We, the undersigned, owners of land in the county of , in
the state of Virginia, do hereby form an immigration society to be
known as and bear the name of the immigration society of
county, Virginia. The object for which said society is formed is to
advertise for sale and to sell or lease the lands of the members of said
society, in such manner and upon such terms as may be provided by
the constitution and by-laws of the society adopted by the members
thereof; the officers of said society, to manage its affairs for the first
year and until their successors are elected and qualified, will
be a president, a secretary, a treasurer and a board of directors,
which board shall consist of not less than five persons nor more than
nine, as the said society at the time of its organization shall deter-
mine. The principal office of said society will be at — , in said
county.

2. When such writing shall have been so signed, sealed, acknow-
ledged and recorded in the county court clerk’s office, and a duly
certified copy thereof lodged in the office of the secretary of the com-
monwealth for recordation, and another such copy deposited with
the commissioner of agriculture at Richmond, the person who signed,

sealed and acknowledged it, and all others who may thereafter be
associated with them, shall be a body corporate and politic under
the name set forth in said writing, and as such may have a common
seal; may contract and be contracted with; may sue and be sued,
and may be appointed an agent or an attorney in fact; to sell or
lease or exchange lands situate in said county or in any other county
adjoining that wherein is the principal office of such society: pro-
vided, however, that there shall not be organized, under this act, in
any county, more than one immigration society for every one hun-
dred thousand acres of land situate in such county.

3. Each society organized under this act shall be exempt from the
payment of the tax upon said writing for its recordation in the office
of the clerk of the county and in the office of the secretary of the
commonwealth, and shall not be assessed with a license tax as a
land agent, either by the state, the county or the town in which its
principal office may be located, and shall be exempt from the pay-
ment of taxes to the state upon powers of attorney or contracts of
agency for the sale of lands recorded in any county wherein it is
authorized by this act to do business.

4, Every such society shall, within six months after its organization,
and in each six months thereafter, file in the office of the commis-
sioner of agriculture alist of lands in its hands for sale, showing,
as near as practicable, their location relative to railroad or water
transportation, and the price and terms upon which the same will
be sold, and also a list of all sales made by it within the six months
then last past, which list shall be attested by the president and
secretary of the society under its seal; for failing to file such lists,
or either of them, for thirty days after they have been called for by
the commissioner of agriculture, the society so failing shall be sub-
ject to a fine of twenty dollars, recoverable by the commissioner of
agriculture by motion, after ten days’ notice, in the court of the
county wherein the principal office of such society is.

5. The commissioner of agriculture shall provide and furnish to
societies organized under this act forms for the reports required to
be made by them under the fourth section, and he shall, with his
annual report to the governor of the commonwealth, furnish a list
of immigration societies doing business under this act, showing
their presidents and secretaries, their places of business, the quan-
tity of land in their hands for sale, and the quantity sold by them
since his last report.

6. This act shall be in force from its passage.