agricultural experiment station. The Purnell Act, passed in 1925, increased these funds by $20,000 for the year ending June 30, 1926, and provided for increases of $10,000 annually until the year ending June 30, 1930, when the amount from all Federal sources reached the sum of $90,000 annually for each State and Territory.16

The main difference between the Purnell Act and its two predecessors lies in the new fields in which investigations were to be encouraged. The two earlier acts were concerned almost exclusively with the productive phases of agriculture. The Purnell Act had the further provision that development of research in marketing, rural sociology, and home economics was to be stimulated. The phrasing of the Act as to scope of the investigations follows:

. . conducting investigations or making experiments bearing directly on the production, manufacture, preparation, use, distribution, and marketing of agricultural products and including such scientific researches as have for their purpose the establishment and maintenance of a permanent and efficient agricultural industry, and such economic and sociological investigations as have for their purpose the development and improvement of the rural home and rural life, and for printing and disseminating the results of said researches.17

This legislation clearly recognizes the need for a broader base than is provided in the Hatch and Adams Acts for the determination of the character of investigations to be undertaken by the stations. Certain social and economic aspects have been incorporated. In one respect, however, it is strangely deficient. Although representatives of the landgrant colleges were instrumental in the formulation of this legislation and although it became effective barely a decade ago, it makes no specific provision for research in a subject that has for a generation been one of the most pressing of rural problems-the school.

Bankhead-Jones Act.-On June 29, 1935, the BankheadJones Act was approved. Under the provisions of Title I, funds were made available to the United States Department of Agriculture

to conduct research into laws and principles underlying basic problems of agriculture in its broadest aspects; research relating to the 16 Sec. 1. For text of Act see Appendix A.

17 Sec. 1.

improvement of the quality of, and the development of new and improved methods of production of, distribution of, and new and extended uses and markets for agricultural commodities and byproducts and manufactures thereof; and research relating to the conservation, development, and use of land and water resources for agricultural purposes.18

Under the provisions of the Bankhead - Jones Act, $1,000,000 was authorized to be appropriated for the first fiscal year after the passage of the Act, with an increase of $1,000,000 a year until the annual appropriation becomes $5,000,000.19 These sums are to be divided so that 40 percent goes to the United States Department of Agriculture and 60 percent to the experiment stations.20 The allotment to the experiment stations is to be apportioned among the States and Territories and Puerto Rico on the basis of the ratio between the rural population of each State or Territory and Puerto Rico and the aggregate rural population of the United States.21 The Act specifies that:

Sums appropriated in pursuance of this title shall be in addition to, and not in substitution for sums appropriated or otherwise made

available for agricultural experiment stations.22

The Act also requires that allotments be matched by the expenditure of equal sums for experiment station work by the State, Territory, or Puerto Rico. The phraseology of the Act is as follows:

No allotment and no payment under any allotment shall be made for any fiscal year in excess of the amount which Puerto Rico or the State or Territory makes available for such fiscal year out of its own funds for research and for the establishment and maintenance of necessary facilities for the prosecution of such research.23

Administration of the

Experiment Station Acts

The Hatch Act provided that the experiment stations should "... be established, under direction of the college or colleges or agricultural department of colleges . . . established, in accordance with the provisions of an act approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixty-two" 24. Already

...

some States had established experiment stations independent of their colleges of agriculture. The legislation made exceptions for these States and, as True points out, "in this way State stations in Connecticut, New York, and Ohio receive, in whole or in part, the benefits" of the legislation.25 The Office of Experiment Stations in the United States Department of Agriculture was established on October 1, 1888 by Commissioner of Agriculture Colman, and W. O. Atwater, who had been connected with the station at Wesleyan University, was appointed as the first director.26 It is largely through the operations of this Office that the relationships of the Department of Agriculture to the State experiment stations have been developed. At the present time the Office of Experiment Stations handles the relationships of the Department of Agriculture to the experiment stations; the title of the officer in charge is "chief" and he is responsible directly to the Secretary of Agriculture.

The experiment station in each State is by law a division of the land-grant college." The Office of Experiment Stations has endeavored, with more or less success, to have a full-time director of the experiment station appointed in each land-grant institution, this director to be coordinate in authority with the directors of extension and resident instruction. In some institutions the dean serves as director of the experiment station. The local responsibility of the director of an experiment station is to the dean of agriculture or the president of the college, depending upon the organization of the institution. An arrangement of this kind facilitates Federal-State relationships.

It has been pointed out that prior to the passage of the Hatch Act several States had established agricultural experiment stations. Despite this experience with experiment stations, a great deal of uncertainty existed in the early days of the Act as to just how the funds should be used, and doubtless some of the funds were spent for purposes not in accord

24 Sec. 1. Reference is to the First Morrill Act.

25 Alfred C. True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research in the United States: 1607-1925 . . . U. S. Department of Agriculture, Miscellaneous Publication No. 251 (Washington: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1937), p. 135.

26 Ibid., p. 132.

27 Hatch Act. sec. 1.

with the intent of the Act. In some States local interpretations were made permitting the funds to be freely used for instruction and extension. The Hatch Act makes no provision for recurring appropriations and Secretary of Agriculture Morton asked Congress for the authority to make an inquiry regarding the expenditure of the funds by the States. He was authorized in connection with the Appropriation Act for 1894 to ". . . prescribe the form of the annual financial statement ascertain whether the expenditures under the appropriation hereby made are in accordance with the provisions of the said Act, and make report thereon to Congress." 28

This authorization was the beginning of a more intimate relationship between the Office of Experiment Stations and the stations than had previously existed. Annual visits were made to the stations by representatives of the Office of Experiment Stations. These visits were not only the occasion for examination of expenditures but also offered an opportunity for discussing with members of the staff of the local institutions the work that was being conducted elsewhere. These discussions contributed to the expansion and development of the ideals of many of the workers. "It was a settled policy of the Office from its beginning to take a helpful and sympathetic attitude toward the authorities and workers in the stations." 29

As has previously been noted the Adams Act more rigidly limited the type of inquiry that might be undertaken by the experiment stations than had been done in the Hatch Act. In the Adams Act emphasis was placed on "original researches or experiments." The Secretary of Agriculture is required to"... ascertain and certify to the Secretary of the Treasury as to each State and Territory whether it is complying with the provisions of this Act and is entitled to receive its share of the annual appropriation for agricultural experiment stations under this Act." 30

The Secretary of Agriculture in carrying out this provision wrote the directors of the agricultural experiment stations calling their attention to the necessity of outlining the work

28 28 Stat. L. 271 (1894).

29 True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research, p. 133. 30 Sec. 4.

to be supported by the Adams funds in the form of specific projects for approval by the Office of Experiment Stations in advance of making expenditures on them. In accord with this letter, the Director of the Office of Experiment Stations requested the directors of the experiment stations to submit in writing their plans for use of the Adams funds; these plans were to be approved by the Director before disbursement of funds.31 The statements, known as "projects," are definite and specific proposals for the use of the funds. This practice has been continued and extended to include researches under other authorizations.

Key writes of this method of Federal control as follows:

The device of advance approval of contemplated state action is a method of primary importance. By the review of plans and budgets outlining proposed programs of action, the federal agency may assure itself that the contemplated work is in accordance with the policies of the federal act. This is the primary utility of the method, but it has collateral values. It may compel a planning attitude and a periodic reexamination of state programs. It permits federal technical advice and assistance to be offered at a time when it may exert the greatest influence. Wide ranges of performance can, of course, come within the confines of the acts of Congress, and the periodic review of programs of work permits a more or less unremitting federal pressure for improvement.32

The personal relationships that are involved in the method of control of the use of Adams funds are delicate and it would be possible for them to prevent the development of the degree of cooperation essential for the maximum results. Despite this fact, fine cooperation has existed between the Federal Government and the States in the administration of the experiment stations, and their work has been one of the most successful of the Federal-State enterprises. The high degree of success is undoubtedly due largely to the wisdom that has been shown by the Office of Experiment Stations in dealing with the State authorities. The technique has been described as follows by two who were intimately connected with its development:

In passing upon these projects the Office has undertaken to determine only their suitability and appropriateness under the terms of the

81 True, A History of Agricultural Experimentation and Research, pp. 170-1.

32 V. O. Key, Jr., The Administration of Federal Grants to States (Chicago: Public Administration Service, 1937), pp. 369–70.