During the period of general distress in agriculture following World War I, research needs drew increased attention at the regional and national levels. The directors pressed for more Federal-grant support to expand their programs. They also attempted to meet the additional needs by encouraging more cooperative activity. In 1920 they adopted a national policy of payment of travel expenses of workers to regional conferences (7). There was some increase in the number of regional conferences and councils as a result.

During their November 1923 meeting, the directors discussed the regional approach to research in detail (4). Director Dan T. Grey of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station outlined the following points of merit in regional attacks upon needed studies:

1. Regional attacks enlarge the scope of most problems, and do this at a saving of money.

2. Regional attacks develop a spirit of greater confidence in us and in our work from the standpoint of the public.

3. Cooperation relieves the State of the necessity of making independent attacks upon all agricultural problems.

4. Cooperation standardizes methods of experimentation. 5. Cooperation prevents individual and departmental workers from losing sight of the final application of the projects.

6. Regional attacks upon research problems give permanency and stability to experimental studies.

Director J. G. Lipman of the New Jersey Experiment Station pointed out that the term "regional" is an elastic one. The boundaries of a region vary with the problem. Regional research helps to differentiate the local from the more general factors. A more clearly defined plan of attack usually results. Common use of standard methods is imperative or the comparison and interpretation of results will be most difficult. Regional conferences acquaint the scientific workers with negative results and conclusions not deemed worthy of publication. Personal acquaintance is one of the major gains. Conversely, personal vanity can be one of the most serious obstacles. The training of younger men is facilitated whenever a regional problem is attacked by a group of workers located at different points. The regional approach has a tendency to hasten the application of the recommendations made by investigators.

Passage of the Purnell bill on February 24, 1925, brought about a nationwide program of cooperative research and further development of patterns for regional research. The Purnell Act increased the Federal-grants to each State and broadened the field of research the stations were authorized to cover. It was intended to expand economic and sociological investigations. There was no special provision for cooperative regional research, but Federal and State station administrators were determined to expand this aspect of the research programs. Meeting in St. Louis, Mo., on April 20-21, 1925, they formulated plans to promote and develop Federal-State cooperation under six national projects including: (1) distribution and marketing of farm products; (2) the problem of surpluses of farm products; (3) vitamin content of food in relation to human nutrition; (4) rural home management studies; (5) rural social organizations and agencies essential to a permanent and effective agriculture; and (6) factors influencing the production and quality of meats. Special subject-matter committees, each with an advisory administrator, were appointed to for

mulate project plans. A committee of experiment station directors cleared each plan. Thus for the first time in the history of the State stations, an attempt was made to conduct cooperative research under a formal organization (8).

Experience gained from these early regional and national cooperative projects was to become a foundation for the cooperative regional research program many years later. Director Tom Cooper of Kentucky described from his experiences as administrative adviser to the committee on distribution and marketing of surpluses, the responsibility and problems of the directors serving such committees (2). The development of mechanics for cooperative research could not replace effective leadership or administration. There was also the difficulty of focusing effort on specific regional problems and assigning responsibility to the participating researchers. Projects needed to state definitely the particular phase of research to be performed by each participant. Whether or not executive secretaries or coordinators were used, contacts with the directors had to be maintained to plan the work effectively.

Initial progress was encouraging and the Committee on Experiment Station Organization and Policy (ESCOP) reported that considerable enlargement of the cooperative relations between stations would result (12). Endeavors, however, should be limited to comparatively few, well chosen projects into which the directors could put their best qualified workers and provide sufficient funds to assure useful results. As the years passed, however, the organization set up for cooperative research in 1925 brought about considerably less improvement in regional research between State stations than between USDA and the stations (9). In 1931, the Joint Committee on Projects and Correlations of Research recommended that the special research committees established in 1925 be discontinued (6).

The Christgau bill introduced in Congress on June 30, 1930, provided that there be set up a regional research council in the major agricultural production regions to be composed of the directors of the experiment stations and representatives of the Secretary of Agriculture. The councils were to employ research workers at the various stations working under the administrative direction of the council. The Christgau bill never reached the stage of hearings by the agricultural committees of the House and Senate, nor very serious discussions by the land-grant colleges (19). By 1933, most of the Purnell committees were disbanded and a distinct lull in interstate cooperation occurred. With limited facilities and support, the State stations were faced with unprecedented demands for special emergency research in connection with the economic depression.

The Bankhead-Jones Act of 1935 gave special impetus to cooperative research through the provision for the regional laboratories. It provided additional funds which stimulated the research programs of the State stations and cooperative activity. Increasing interest in the regional approach and in interstate cooperation was marked by the establishment of planning groups, such as the Corn Belt Livestock Marketing Research Committee and the North Central and the Southwestern Land Tenure Research Committees (1). Each was charged with the responsibility for planning a regional project, or projects, within their respective fields. On each project, the unit

for collaboration and teamwork on research became the technical committee, with overall guidance provided by an administrative adviser.

In retrospect, the period predating 1940 may be viewed as one of very gradual evolvement of regional research concepts. The growing problems of agriculture and periods of recession directed attention to regional and national levels of research. Federal legislation stimulated the programs of the State stations and cooperation between the States. The main elements of regional research organization developed, including the administrative adviser, the technical committee, and the regional project. The essential requirement still lacking was the specific funding to support a nationwide, stable program.

The continuing difficulty in the use of regional committees was securing the funds for out-of-state travel for State men and women to attend the regional conferences. Many States had stringent laws, and sharply limited funds for such travel. Assistance was provided in some instances by certain private agencies, such as the National Livestock and Meat Board and the Farm Foundation. The Directors became increasingly concerned, however, that the provision of the necessary travel expense should not be left to the chance that some outside agency would defray the costs. They also recognized that with some projects it was highly important that the researchers be completely free from any possibility that they were under even indirect obligations to a donor. In the regional laboratories supported with Bankhead-Jones funds, the Department assumed the travel expenses of the collaborators. The necessity remained, however, of providing funds for coordination on the regional and national levels of a considerable number of important projects and proposals not connected with the regional laboratories.

In a final report summarizing the situation in 1942 (5), the Joint Committee on Projects and Correlation of Research stressed this need:

Beginning in 1920, the Committee on Projects and Correlation of Research has repeatedly emphasized the desirability of regional conferences of scientific workers, and has recommended that funds be provided to defray necessary travel costs. Experience has demonstrated that most States find it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to assume the expense of sending representatives to many of these conferences. With the Department carrying the responsibility for securing the regional and national application of research results secured in individual states, it seems appropriate to look to the Department to pay the necessary travel costs, if the stations will furnish the time of their staff members. .

Another factor serving as a catalyst for the origin of Federal support for interstate cooperation was the continual concern of members of the appropriations committees of the Congress over the control of duplication of research. Varying conditions within the States meant that projects of similar objective were not duplication, but more or less replication under different conditions. This explanation, however, did not seem adequate to satisfy the criticism. It was felt that certain specialized problems within a region could be more efficiently solved if efforts were concentrated or pooled at given locations rather than being dispersed. Some formal mechanism was needed to bring about the desired coordination of research.

REGIONAL RESEARCH FUND CREATED

Several legislative proposals involving cooperative research relating to human nutrition, forestry, and marketing were pending in 1941 when the outbreak of war shifted interest to research mobilization for food and fiber production. Continuation of concern toward increasing coordination of research and cooperative effort was evidenced by the renewal of legislative proposals relating to marketing and nutrition and introduction of others, including cotton and rural housing, in postwar planning. Support from the farm organizations became strong in 1946. ESCOP was called upon in April 1946 to decide whether a new bill or an amendment to the Bankhead-Jones Act would be most appropriate from the viewpoint of the State agricultural experiment stations. A proposed amendment was prepared by a subcommittee of ESCOP, including Directors Baver (N.C.), Guterman (N.Y. Cornell), and Dorman (Miss.). It included a provision for the desired regional research and coordination which especially interested the farm organizations and Congress. In recent correspondence,2 Director Baver states his thinking back of the regional research provision as follows:

I must confess that I am guilty of suggesting some kind of provision within the act that would make possible the setting up of funds for regional research. This idea stemmed from two facts that were very obvious at that time. The more important from the standpoint of serving as a catalyst for the origin of the regional research funds was the continual harping by members of the Appropriations Committee over the duplication that was existing within the research of the various agricultural experiment stations. . . . The second factor was one that concerned me a great deal. After getting into administrative work at North Carolina I was very disturbed over the fact that various technical workers within a given field in adjacent states were not getting together to discuss mutual problems that would improve the efficiency of research within their respective institutions. . . Then I had an idea, which, from subsequent experiences, I reckoned must be considered as being in the visionary class. I definitely felt that, in a way, the members of Congress were correct in that there was a certain amount of duplication that could be eliminated. I felt that there were certain specialized problems within a region that could be more efficiently solved if our efforts were concentrated at a given location for the solution rather than being dispersed between a number of scattered institutions. . . . As a result of this thinking, which was concurred with by Directors Guterman and Dorman, we drafted the provision for the Regional Research Fund.

The subcommittee, with the counsel and advice of ESCOP and other directors, worked with representatives of other groups on the Research and Marketing bill and in the process inserted the provision establishing a Regional Research Fund. ESCOP appointed a committee with a representative from each region to make the presentation before the House of Representatives, Committee of Agriculture. This group included Directors P. S. Burgess of Arizona, C. Dorman of Mississippi, C. E. F. Guterman of New York (later replaced by Director W. B. Kemp of Maryland) and Noble Clark of Wisconsin with Director L. D. Baver as overall chairman representing the special legislative committee. These men played stellar roles in 1946 working for House Bill 6548, which became known as the Research and Marketing Act (14, pp. 37-70).

As a result of the work of this special Legislative Committee, the Special Committee appearing before the House Committee on Agri

'Personal communication from L. D. Baver to M. A. Farrell.

culture, the members of ESCOP and other directors, the Office of Experiment Stations, farm organizations and the Committees of Congress, the statement establishing regional research was developed and became a part of the Research and Marketing Act of 1946. This description of regional research as it appears essentially unchanged in the amended Hatch Act of 1955, Sec. 3(c)3, is shown below:

Not more than 25 per centum shall be allotted to the States for cooperative research in which two or more State agricultural experiment stations are cooperating to solve problems that concern the agriculture of more than one State. The funds available for such purposes, together with funds available pursuant to subsection (b) hereof for like purpose shall be designated as the 'Regional research fund, State agricultural experiment stations,' and shall be used only for such cooperative regional projects as are recommended by a committee of nine persons elected by and representing the directors of the State agricultural experiment stations, and approved by the Secretary of Agriculture. The necessary travel expenses of the committee of nine persons in performance of their duties may be paid from the funds established by this paragraph.

The intent and objectives of regional research then as determined from the legislation itself and testimony given at the hearings may be summarized as follows:

1. To stimulate and facilitate inter-State cooperation on research of a regional and national character, both between Agricultural Experiment Stations and with the USDA.

2. To plan and coordinate research so as to avoid unnecessary duplication in research effort.

3. To organize regional technical committees consisting of State and Federal representatives that will plan and coordinate work on regional problems.

In the hearings of June 13-26, 1946, before the House Committee on Agriculture, the Directors emphasized that passage of the bill would bring coordination of research and that expansion of cooperative research was needed on important problems. Although only 25 percent of the total funds to be gained by the States was earmarked for cooperative regional research, the farm organizations and Congress expressed special interest in this provision. Policy or procedure for cooperative regional research was not prescribed. Attention was directed almost entirely to problems of research which needed solution-cotton, nutrition, farm buildings, and marketing. The content of the program was practically set, however comprehensive, whereas organization and procedure for the regional approach

were not.

The reason for the 25 percent limitation was not made clear and some Directors felt it was an unnecessary, if not a possibly undesirable limitation, especially considering marketing problems crossing State lines, and because the intent of the individual station would be to deal with local objectives. There was no doubt left after the hearings, however, that Congress intended the legislation overall to support joint effort directed toward the solution of the most pressing problems in agriculture, to provide against duplication, and to earmark emphasis for marketing research.

A special provision (Section 11) proposed by the Directors calling for close coordination between the States and the Department was notably modified in the final legislation. It called for appropriate cooperative agreements to prevent duplication.

The directors were definitely committed to budget a certain portion of the Regional research fund in the fields stressed during the hearings. The Experiment Stations Committee on Organization and Policy proceeded with preliminary planning to outline important