Land Tenure Research: Scope and Nature, 1962

Excerpts from the Preface: For nearly 50 years the U.S. Department of Agriculture and State experiment stations have sought, through research, to solve new tenure problems arising out of a constantly changing agriculture. This document represents a reexamination of this continuing process of research. Following the publication of Research in Agricultural Land Tenure--Scope and Method by the Social Science Research Council in 1933, the States of four regions--North Central, Great Plains, Southeast, and Southwest (now combined into Southern) -- the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Farm Foundation formed tenure research committees to study problems of larger than local interest. These committees, separately and jointly, through their Interregional Committee, have maintained a responsibility for continuous review and evaluation of their work. The last published evaluation of the Interregional Committee was entitled Agricultural Land Tenure Research, Scope and Nature: Reappraisal, 1955. The cumbersome title of this document gave way to the shorter "Gray Report", or "Gray Book, " terms not illogically derived from the color of its cover. This report, then, is a new statement on tenure research although it builds upon the Gray Report as the latter built on similar statements before it. t should be emphasized that the report is not intended as a final work; it is "a look around" as of the present moment. Reappraisals should be made of the field of land tenure research at periodic intervals. The report was written primarily for research workers in the field of land economics. However, it will also be of interest to other social scientists, administrators of research programs, and graduate students.