HIGHWAY TO THE HORIZON 



facturers who can rarely afford to maintain either, yet 

 who so often most sorely need this assistance. 



The record of the first year is enheartening: the 

 initial laboratories enviably well equipped and manned 

 by a staff of twenty highly trained, competent research 

 workers. Half of these are Southerners, born, bred, and 

 educated a retort courteous to the complaint that the 

 best technical brains of the South have been enticed 

 away to more tempting opportunities in the North and 

 West. Six months after it opened its doors for business, 

 the business of research for Southern industries, the 

 Institute reports twenty sponsors and project contracts 

 in excess of $200,000. Cotton textiles, cottonseed prod- 

 ucts, tobacco, peanuts, citrus by-products, essential 

 oils, metallurgy, and mechanical problems are all on 

 the laboratory work benches. Already, men and appa- 

 ratus jostle each other, and enthusiastic friends are 

 bustling out to raise $2,500,000 to build and equip a 

 seven-story laboratory where two hundred scientists 

 can hunt answers for Southern sponsors. 



The modus operandi is simple and direct. The sponsor 

 places a definite project with the Institute to be carried 

 forward at an agreed rate. A qualified scientist with all 

 the facilities of the Institute behind him is assigned to 

 the project, and expenses beyond the agreed sum may 

 not be incurred without the sponsor's approval. The 

 field of the research is defined and any and all discov- 

 eries or inventions within its scope, as well as all infor- 



301 



