Field Stations

Many Federal research scientists are located at the State experiment stations and carry on work there in cooperation with State scientists as part of a regional or national research program. Some are even joint employees of the Department and the State, especially when one man or a small group can conduct the researches most effectively to satisfy both the local need and the regional or national need. Federal scientists stationed in one State often have responsibility for work in a wide region that overlaps parts of several States.

Federal field stations have also been organized to deal with problems of broad interest, often at different locations from the State stations in Places most suitable to the research work to be done. For example, there are several in the Western States to deal with the special problems of irrigation, dry-land farming, and grazing. Others deal with plant or animal breeding, insect or disease control, soil improvement and conservation, and other special problems of a significant natural area, which may include parts of several States. Such field stations are relatively specialized and deal only with a few closely related problems. Most of them are not equipped for intensive basic research but address themselves to applied research and practical testing of methods or breeding materials. Most of them are tied closely to the work at Beltsville. The programs are worked out cooperatively with the State experiment stations and are a functional part of the regional or national programs in the fields covered.

Federal Regional Research Laboratories

Some 15 years ago it was realized that more basic research than ordinarily can be undertaken at a Federal field station was needed to solve certain important agricultural problems. Although these problems are very important to several States, or even to most of them, no one State could be expected to devote the necessary funds and staff to them. Since they could not be handled conveniently at Beltsville, special laboratories were established in other places, usually at one of the land-grant colleges, where libraries and other facilities were available and where it seemed the problem could be attacked most effectively.

Nine of these United States regional laboratories, sometimes called the Bankhead-Jones laboratories, in addition to the four large ones dealing with agricultural and industrial chemistry, have been established as follows: Vegetable breeding, at Charleston, S. C.; pasture research, at State College, Pa.; swine breeding, at Ames, Iowa; animal disease research, at Auburn, Ala.; soybean, at Urbana, Ill.; sheep breeding, at Dubois, Idaho; poultry, at East Lansing, Mich.; salinity, at Riverside, Calif.; plant, soil, and nutrition, at Ithaca, N. Y.

A Federal scientist directs the work at each laboratory under the general administrative supervision of the bureau or division of the Department in which the subject matter falls. The original plans and programs are arrived at by agreement among the several State experiment stations concerned most vitally with the problems.

A separate board of collaborators is appointed for each laboratory. It is made up of established scientists in the fields of science covered, who also represent the several interested State experiment stations and other research groups. They meet from time to time to appraise the work critically and to suggest technical changes for its improvement.

The programs of the laboratories are not only consistent with those of the other research groups of the Department and the State experiment stations—they are a part of their programs too. Many important contributions have already come of the intensive specialized research at these laboratories. A few of the more outstanding ones will be found in subsequent articles in this book under the specific subjects listed in the Table of Contents.

The reasons that have led to such close cooperation among the scientists of our several States and of the Federal research organization apply in the broader international. field. A crop or practice that is good on a soil in our Great Plains will likely be so on the same type of soil in the Russian steppe. Insects and diseases can ruin crops or livestock on either side of the Rio Grande. And so it goes. By exchanging results and helping one another, scientists of the different countries all make greater progress. Ultimately each farmer can have the benefit of agricultural science throughout the world, as applied to a farm like his own.

Through exchanges of agricultural attaches and other experts and students, and especially through the activities of international scientific societies, much has been done. But not nearly enough. These activities were suspended during the war as far as most of Europe was concerned. Within the Western Hemisphere, however, cooperation increased.

After nearly 3 years of preliminary work, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations—called the FAO—was organized in the autumn of 1945. Although it does not have a considerable research staff of its own, it serves as a stimulating and coordinating agency for all countries in somewhat the same way that the Department research group serves the States in our country.

Education, trade, and free exchange of ideas are necessary, as well as research. Science will lead the way because the language of science is international. Really there are no such things as American genetics, Russian soil science, or English mathematics; there are genetics, soil science, and mathematics. People from many nations and races have contributed. Common effort in research leads to mutual respect and understanding among scientists. With that step others may follow more easily.