Mr. FERGUSON. That is right.

Mr. ANDERSEN. And, of course, that is what gives to Extension Service the good name which it enjoys throughout the Nation.

USE OF EXTENSION FUNDS

Mr. HORAN. Mr. Schruben, referring to the chart following page 362, which indicates the source of all funds allotted for cooperative Extension work, can you tell us how much of this $1,146,255 for administration was for use in your Washington office and what portion was allotted for use at the field level?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. Mr. Horan, the cost of personnel in the Director's office is estimated to be $62,015 for 1954 and another office which is in the proposed budget would entail a personnel cost of $50,020, a part of which would be for administration to the extent that it represented the Director's office. The balance would be for working with the States in program development. The entire amount of $1,146,255 is for the overall administration and coordination of the cooperative extension work in the field.

Mr. HORAN. The remaining million-odd dollars goes for what? Mr. SCHRUBEN. The remaining money appropriated for the operation of the Washington office or the Federal office goes for liaison work with the other agencies within the Department as it relates to Extension work and backstopping the work in the States and counties. Mr. HORAN. By "liaison" you mean what?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. For example, we have counterparts to some of the different bureaus and agencies within Government and it is their responsibility primarily to work with the States in applying or making application of results of new research to educational programs.

EXAMPLE OF EXTENSION PROJECT

Mr. HORAN. Could you give the committee a specific example? Mr. SCHRUBEN. One specific example would be the area of apple marketing. There has been considerable research on the merchandising of apples. A good deal of work has been done in your State; a good deal has been done in New York State. In this particular example we made a study to see what the effect was because, as you know, marketing is quite new and we are not always sure of our ground in the area of market education as we are in many of the areas of production. But in this particular case, a chainstore adopted the new practices in certain of their stores and in other comparable stores continued their regular merchandising practices. They made a study to see what effect there was on merchandising or sale of apples. The new practices increased sales quantitatively 42 percent.

Mr. HORAN. How was that done?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. The educational work involved in this example of a marketing practice involved public meetings for producers, trade groups, store, and managers. It included the development of teaching materials, demonstrations on packaging, display, and merchandising. The technique developed to cut costs of merchandising and increase sales was to package in larger packages-10 pounds instead of 5 pounds or less.

Mr. HORAN. By whom was this handled?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. Extension staff at Cornell. The extension specialists in fruit and vegetable marketing.

Mr. HORAN. Did you make a grant to Cornell to do that from the Washington office?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. Not from the million referred to.

Mr. HORAN. I am trying to find out what we did with the rest of this million dollars here from the Washington office.

Mr. SCHRUBEN. We have a fruit and vegetable marketing person who is a program leader working with all of the States on the problems of applying the results of research to the educational programs that take place in the States and he is our counterpart or our liaison with the research agencies and other service agencies of the Department and other agencies in Government who works with the State people in getting the results of research into educational programs that takes place out in the States.

Mr. HORAN. How much of the million dollars did you use for that Cornell project?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. The only part that was used for that project was the proportion of this specialists' salary and the proportion of his time.

Mr. HORAN. What do you call that program? Let me understand this. This $62,000 goes for administration. That is for personnel in Washington.

Mr. FERGUSON. That is right.

Mr. HORAN. They are employees in the Washington office and they do not move out. You have $50,000 here, part of which goes for program planning. I am trying to find out what we did with the rest of the million dollars. I assume it was well spent but you have not explained it as yet. How much went to the Cornell project that you mentioned?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. It is all spent on personnel employed here in the Washington office.

Mr. FERGUSON. These people work with the States.

Mr. WHEELER. Let me say this: The funds you are talking about go for the support of the Federal Office of Extension. The two sums that Mr. Schruben mentioned earlier are for the housekeeping and planning functions in the Federal Office of Extension. The rest of it, what you referred to, the million dollars, goes for the staff of education specialists in the Federal Office of Extension headquartered in Washington who have the job of funneling the results of research and other programs of the Department out to the State extension services in a manner in which they can best use it.

COORDINATING AND DISSEMINATING DEPARTMENTAL RESEARCH

Mr. HORAN. In funneling it out, how much help do you get from the Office of Information, from the information specialists who are in BAE, in the Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics, in agricultural engineering, and others; practically every division has an information office. There is no use, of course, in carrying on research unless you get it out where it will do some good.

Mr. FERGUSON. I think that point, Mr. Horan, is very well taken. That is the function of these people. That is, they must maintain contact with the bureaus: BAE, Plant Industry, BĂI, and so forth.

They maintain a close working relationship; they know what is new; they know what is coming up. They are working with the people out in the States, the specialists and program people out there, alerting them to what is new. Let me give you a specific example of something that has happened here just recently. Our extension entomologist has been working with the States on a program of control of weevils and rodents in wheat, working very closely with Pure Food and Drug Administration here. He is very familiar, you see, with the problems that are involved in wheat sanitation. He takes the leadership and communicates with the entomologist and the other program people in the States, alerting them to what this problem is, what attitude the Food and Drug Administration is taking on it, what concern the Congress has for it, the attitude of the trade, and helps them develop educational programs to do a better job of control of insects and rodents in grain.

Mr. HORAN. The control of rodents is a responsibility of the Fish and Wild Life in Interior which I think is the wrong slot; I think it should be in Plant Quarantine.

Mr. FERGUSON. He works with the Fish and Wild Life people in that respect and he is really a coordinator of activities here at the Federal level and channels that out to the Extension people in the States who conduct educational programs based upon all sources of information available.

Mr. WHEELER. There is one more point. You mentioned information. I think we might point out that the State extension people, county agents, and so on, are among the biggest consumers of information materials, publications of one kind or another that the research and other agencies in the Department put out, and part of the job of the Federal Extension Service is to stimulate the kind of publication that will be the most useful to the Extension Agent on the ground in his work of education, face to face with the farmer.

EXPENDITURES FOR ADMINISTRATION AT STATE LEVEL

Mr. HORAN. How much is spent for administration at the State level? This is not your responsibility. I just want to know what your estimate is on that, percentagewise?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. Last year it was 2.9 percent.

Mr. HORAN. Out of how much money?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. That is out of $84 million which is a total of Federal and State.

Mr. HORAN. Almost 3 percent for statewide administration over which this committee has no control. You estimate that 75.7 percent of all funds are spent for county agent work.

Mr. SCHRUBEN. Yes; extension work with counties.

Mr. HORAN. And the remaining 24.3 would be for what type of work?

Mr. SCHRUBEN. That would be for backstopping county agent work through State specialists, through administration, through publications paid for by the State extension services, and four-tenths of 1 percent set up as reserve; that accounts for 100 percent. I can give you those figures exactly.

Mr. HORAN. I would like to have them.

30505-53-pt. 3- -9

(The information requested follows:)

Summary statement of allotments of cooperative extension funds in States and Territories, by sources and lines of work for 1952–53 (including research and marketing and farm housing funds)

Total.

100.0

100. 0 32, 217, 414. 46 30, 572, 160. 68 100.0 21,887, 721.89 100.0 84, 677, 297. 03

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Ferguson, I understand your background is as a State director of extension.

Mr. FERGUSON. That is right.

Mr. WHITTEN. How long have you served in that capacity?

Mr. FERGUSON. Since 1949.

Mr. WHITTEN. One of your men, L. I. Jones, served as State director in my State for a long time. I am sure he is doing a good job for you as he did in my State. I think he served the longest period of time of any director we ever had. I think we made some of the greatest progress during that period. I am not going to let Carl Andersen and Fred Marshall get ahead of me. I was one of the first 4-H boys to grow a hundred bushels of corn on an acre of land, but due to an error of measurement I had a little less than an acre on which I got 100 bushels, so I did not qualify for the prize acre. I am very much pleased at the approach that is made in extension work where there is cooperation between county governments, State governments, and the Federal Government.

This committee has always supported the Extension Service. We added the last increment last year, and now you are provided with all the funds that the law allows. That is unusual in government, and yet I think everyone agrees that this money is well spent.

However, there are some problems connected with your type of operation which I want to discuss.

RELATIONSHIP OF EXTENSION SERVICE TO LAND-GRANT COLLEGES AND THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

First, I have lots of people ask why we don't consolidate all the agricultural activities in one group in each county or State or on some regional basis. Most of those who advocate such a consolidation do not realize the relationship existing between the extension program and other bureaus of the Department of Agriculture.

Actually, you are an independent group set up separately, are you not, and operate by memorandum of agreement between the Department of Agriculture and the Extension Director or the land-grant college?

Mr. FERGUSON. The memorandum is drawn between the Department and the land-grant college.

Mr. WHITTEN. Do you see any way whereby we could resolve this problem of relationships without in turn putting extension under the Department of Agriculture?

If you were to center all work under extension in each county or State, would it not necessarily follow that you would have to change the overall relationship between the Department of Agriculture and

extension?

Mr. FERGUSON. I do not know. I have not given that a great deal of thought, Mr. Whitten. I would say the working relationship between the Federal office and the States has been a very fine relationship.

Mr. WHITTEN. I know it has. I do not have reference particularly to the Federal Extension office and the State extension offices. What I have reference to is this: Would any administration put all the work of a department under a group which in turn was not under the department head? Is there any way for the Department of Agriculture to put its agricultural work at the county level under a group which it cannot control?

Mr. FERGUSON. I do not suppose we could do it under the existing plan.

Mr. WHITTEN. If you put everybody at the county level under extension, would you not at the national level have to put extension under . the Department?

Mr. FERGUSON. I presume you would have to work out some arrangement. I really had not given that problem a great deal of thought.

Mr. WHITTEN. It is a major question frequently raised with me as to why we in Congress do not bring all this work together under one unit. People point out that you are the informational service, that the PMA helps with the cost of certain things, and that SCS helps with the technical planning, all of which is good. I have always said that the Congress was responsible for most of the duplication we have. Too frequently, when something needs to be done, we just pass a new law and set up another group to do it instead of directing some existing group to do it. But there is a distinct difference here with regard to extension and other work in the county levels, due to the separate organizational setup of the Extension Service. I think a good working arrangement exists when the local government helps hire, fire, and pay the county agents. I do not want extension under the Department of Agriculture. It might be all right under certain particular circumstances, but by and large I do not think it would be a desirable policy.

Mr. LAIRD. The same question Mr. Whitten is now asking was asked me when I was home speaking before the junior Dairymen's Association in Wisconsin. The same question you are asking right now. They wanted to know why we do not do it.

Mr. WHITTEN. So few people realize that extension is not under the Department but is controlled by land-grant colleges. The relationship has been very cordial and they have had a common purpose, but nevertheless there is a question of administrative authority involved here.

Mr. FERGUSON. Up to the present time, that coordination, Mr. Whitten, has been pretty largely at the local level between the county agent and other folks in the extension staff, the PMA office, Soil Conservation