<p>60 years ago, S.P. Hays analyzed the federal government’s resource management policies and the professionals involved in this conservation movement. This led him to discover that local resource users opposed the scientific and centralized approach of professionals in federal agencies. The term, “the Conservation Era,” coined by Hays, is reassessed in this article through case studies of two federal agencies—the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Reclamation Service (USRS).</p> <p>In the early twentieth century, the US government launched the Reclamation Project and started systematic supports to settlers in the western United States. During the project, the USRS and the USDA established experiment farms and began investigating irrigated agriculture in the West. The farms were operated by USDA officials in cooperation with state experiment stations and state universities. While the two federal agencies sent advisors to farmers from the fiscal year 1915 onwards, similar projects under the Smith-Lever Act were underway. They were managed by the USDA and state universities.</p> <p>The USDA and state authorities oversaw most of the support projects. Although the target of support included something new—irrigated agriculture—there was neither an expertise exchange between the USDA and the USRS nor a proposal to support new methods. Thus, its nature was not different from existing agricultural extension activities. This finding does not support Hays’ explanation. The characteristics of federal resource management policies and the role of experts he claimed do not necessarily apply to all the policies.</p> <p>The experiment farm was established in a manner that indicates that the two government agencies had organized and strengthened cooperation before Congress increased the budget for agricultural support in 1914. While the two agencies are often portrayed as adversaries at the beginning of the twentieth century, it wasn’t always the case.</p>