National Institute of Agricultural Botany

Abstract

THE King and Queen paid an informal visit to the headquarters of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany at Cambridge on Friday, October 14. They were accompanied by Princess Mary, and the suite included the Minister of Agriculture, Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen. Their Majesties were received at the institute by Sir LawTrence Weaver, chairman of the institute, and Lady Weaver and Mrs. Brinton, chairman and founder of the Housing Association for Officers' Families, by which the fourteen houses adjoining the institute have been built for the accommodation of officers' widows and disabled officers. After the presentation of a number of visitors and members of the council of the institute, the Royal party were conducted round the buildings bv Sir Lawrence and Lady Weaver and the director of the institute, Mr. Wilfred H. Parker. They were shown an exhibit of wheats and bar eys by Prof. Biffen and Mr. E. S. Beaven, the different processes of seed-testing by Mr. C. B. Saunders, chief officer of the Official Seed Testing Station, and a collection of potatoes arranged by Dr.Salaman and Mr. H. Bryan, the superintendent of the Potato Testing Station, Ormskirk. The Royal party were then conducted to the council room, where they made the first entries in the visitors' book, and, after the King had planted a mulberry tree in front of the institute to commemorate his visit, inspected the domestic quarters. Mrs. Brinton then took their Majesties to visit the houses occupied by officers' widows, in front of which a second mulberry tree was planted by the Queen.