REPORT ON THE STATE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS, 1958 By E. C. Elting, Deputy Administrator for Experiment Stations Research continued in 1958 to strengthen agriculture through technological progress and improvement in agricultural marketing. Agricultural research as a nationwide, publicly supported activity is carried on mutually and in close cooperation between the United States Department of Agriculture and the State Agricultural Experiment Stations. It gets widespread cooperation from farmers and farm organizations, marketing groups, private industry, such as processors and marketers of farm commodities, universities, research foundations, and similar public and private-supporting bodies. 11 The organic laws that give governmental authority for establishment of the Federal and State research institutions are the Acts of May 15, 1862, "An Act to Establish a Department of Agriculture, and of July 2, 1862, known as the Land-Grant Act. The Land-Grant Colleges became the parent organizations of at least one agricultural experiment station in each State, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, established under the Hatch Experiment Station Act of 1887. The only exception is Ohio, which has a separate governing board for its experiment station. Connecticut has two experiment stations, one at the University of Connecticut and the other at New Haven, which has a separate governing board. The Act provided for establishing the agricultural experiment stations as separate departments of the Land-Grant Colleges. It also was the first act to authorize Federal-grant payments to stimulate additional support in the form of State appropriations and private grants. Subsequent acts authorizing further amounts of annual Federal-grant payments for research at the agricultural experiment stations were passed in 1906, 1925, 1935, and 1946. These several authorizing acts were brought together under the Hatch Act as amended and approved on August 11, 1955, (Public Law 352--84th Congress). Section 7 of the amended Hatch Act requires the Secretary of Agriculture to report annually to the Congress on the receipts and expenditures and work of the Agricultural Experiment Stations. The fiscal and operational activities of the stations during 1958 are summarized in the tables in this report. Statewide circulation is given to discoveries and progress in individual station reports and periodicals published at monthly, bimonthly, or quarterly intervals. Inquiries concerning specific phases of the total program of a station should be addressed to its Director, whose name and address will be found at the end of the report. RESEARCH ENCOURAGES EFFICIENT PRODUCTION Agricultural output per man hour has been gaining when compared with nonagricultural industry. From 1950 to 1957, output per man hour for nonagricultural industry rose 14 percent or about 2 percent annually. For the same period the gains for agriculture were even greater, totaling 39 percent, or more than 5 percent annually. In August 1958, the Department of Agriculture published its fifth annual summary of the statistics of farm production and efficiency (USDA Statistical Bulletin No. 233). A table in the summary shows by decades since 1820 the number of persons supported by one farm worker in the United States. In 1820, one farm worker produced enough food and fiber to supply the needs of 4. 12 persons, including himself. During the next 60 years the figure ranged from a low of 4. 12 to a high of 5.57. In 1890, following passage of the first Hatch Experiment Station Act, the figure was 5.77. By 1957, one U. S. farm worker produced enough food and fiber for 23.55 persons. A worker in an American factory buys a loaf of bread, a quart of milk, a dozen eggs, and a 2-pound chuck roast with what he currently earns from an hour of labor. In 1940, it took half again as many hours of factory work to buy this food. Agricultural research has ineant a better diet at less cost for every man, woman, and child. It has meant new and higher quality products and wider and more efficient distribution. In addition to making farm production more efficient, agricultural research also generates other activities that mean livelihoods to people. Every Agricultural Experiment Station can point to outstanding examples of how its research has contributed to the material wealth of the State in the form of new industries, fundamental discoveries, and their application to human progress. In addition to the 7.6 million farm workers actually engaged in farm work, many others make their living from agriculture-related activities. Ten million nonfarmers or part-time farmers are employed in processing farm products in the canneries, creameries, flour mills, packing plants, and the like, and in such marketing activities as buying, selling, transporting, storing, packaging, wholesaling, and retailing these products. Six additional million are employed in the factories that manufacture farm machinery, fertilizers, pesticides, and other farm supplies. Thus, for every person engaged in producing food and fiber on the farm, about two persons are employed in agriculture-related work. Agricultural research is concerned with how all of these workers can improve their efficiency and in doing so provide the American consumer with a better product at a lower cost. 70 YEARS' STATE-FEDERAL COOPERATION Under the Hatch Act, the Secretary of Agriculture is responsible for the Federal-grant moneys to be spent as intended by Congress. The State Experiment Stations Division of the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, represents the Secretary of Agriculture in the administration of the act. In the pattern of State-Federal cooperation that has developed since the original Hatch Act of 1887, the agricultural experiment stations are regarded as independent, scientific establishments whose directors are responsible only to the parent land-grant institutions and State-governing bodies. The role of the Federal Department of Agriculture is primarily one of technical service to the experiment stations, involving planning, coordination, and review of research. Before research that contemplates use of Federal-grant funds can be initiated by a State station, it must be approved by the State Experiment Stations Division. The review is made by staff specialists representing specific subject-matter areas who are also familiar with similar or related line projects undertaken by the Department of Agriculture, thus facilitating coordina tion. An annual visit is made by Division representatives to review research under way at the State Experiment Stations. While the primary purpose of this official visit is to examine progress of Federal-grant research under way, this review at most stations also includes the entire research program without regard to source of financial support. The State Experiment Stations Division maintains records of over 12,000 Federal-grant and State-supported projects. A series of research summaries in 27 subject-matter fields, indicating the nature and purpose of projects supported with Federal-grant funds is compiled biennially. More than 12 percent of the research funds available to the State stations is devoted to 199 regional and interregional research projects. These projects are cooperatively planned by technical committees composed of representatives of the State stations of a region and the Department agencies, including a research specialist of the State Experiment Stations Division. Before regional research funds can be allocated for regional projects, such projects must be reviewed and recommended by the Committee of Nine and approved by the Division as provided by law. The Committee of Nine consists of two experiment station directors from each of the agricultural regions and a research representative from the Home Economics Division. The research carried out by each cooperating State and Department agency contributes to the specific objectives of the regional project, and progress is subject to review annually by the technical committees, the Committee of Nine, and the State Experiment Stations Division. In addition to the official, formal pattern of cooperation outlined above, there is also a great deal of informal association and cooperation among scientists. This comes through membership in and meetings of scientific societies whose aims are the advancement of knowledge in specific areas of science. For a continuous flow of properly trained scientific personnel, the State and Federal establishments rely to a large extent on the land-grant colleges and universities. These provide three principal services. One is resident education in science, both undergraduate and graduate. The second is research carried on in individual subject-matter departments but under the overall administration of the station director. This close relationship on the land-grant campuses between research and advanced scientific education has led to many basic discoveries. It permits employment by the experiment stations of scholars who, as graduate assistants, spend part of their time seeking answers to practical problems while also carrying on intensive advanced study leading to graduate degrees. Among this group are found many young people with rural background possessing the skills, imaginativeness, and incentive to do quality research. The third service of the land-grant agricultural colleges is cooperative extension work. Its function is to |