52 



£ 23,000. Before, therefore, the Institute wag formally founded in January 1918, I had 

 secured in money and land subscriptions amounting to about £ 48,000 and a grant by the 

 Government of an amount which gave the Institute a total capital of about £ 94,000. 



The Institute is therefore a semj-ofiicial body of a new type, which owes its being, 

 and will owe driving power hereafter, to a combination of many interests and many types 

 of benefactors. This collaboration is represented in the composition of the Council of 

 twenty one governing the Institute's affairs, over which I have the honour to preside. Three 

 members are nominated by the Ministry of Agriculture, two by the University of Cambridge, 

 one by the University of Oxford, four by Trade Associations, two by Farmers' Associations, 

 and others are co-opted from among scientific agriculturists, such as Mr. Beaven the great 

 barley expert, and Dr. Salaman whose researches in plant genetics have given him a reputation 

 extending far beyond the English field. 



It was arranged that the new Institute should take over from the Ministry of 

 Agriculture the management of the Official Seed Testing Station for England and Wales. 

 This will be done so soon as the fine new building we are erecting on a site of about 

 35 acres at Cambridge is completed, I hope in August next. The plans I now submit 

 show, I think, that in accommodation and facilities we shall be behind no Station in the 

 world. Even with the limited facilities hitherto at our disposal at the English Station, 

 housed temporarily, w^e- can claim to have achieved something. The operation of the 

 Testing of Seeds Order has stimulated British agriculturists to a clear perception of the 

 advantages deriving from seed control. The statistics of tests for the past five seasons 

 are as follows. 



England and Wales. Scotland. Ireland. Total. 



1916/17 - 850 6,089 6,939. 



1917/18 7,744 5,382 12,487 25,613; 



1918/19 23,604 8,554 8,560 40,718. 



1919/20 22,903 9,451 7,403 39,757. 



1920/21 22,098 9,183 2,767 34,748. 



(to end of April only) 



During the last four seasons the official stations of the United Kingdom have carried 

 out in all over 140,000 tests, and the work at the English and Scottish Stations still 

 increases rapidly and is likely to develop to a greater extent next year. 



At the English Station the samples sent in during the current season are 1,200 more 

 in number than during the same period of last season. Scotland similarly shows an increase 

 of 276 samples. 



An interesting feature of the organisation of the new Station at Cambridge is the 

 provision made for its staff. A Military Charity of which I am Treasurer is building 

 fourteen houses adjoining the Institute. These will be occupied by the widows of British 

 Officers who fell in the war and by permanently disabled Officers. Those who are able, 

 and in any case their daughters will have an opportunity of employment in the Seed 

 Testing Station. 



The Chief Executive Officer of the Institute is Mr. Parker lately one of Professor 

 Biffen's assistants, who will control what I may call our "Svalof" activities, and the technical 

 charge of the Official Station is in the hands of my colleague Mr. Saunders who succeeded 

 Professor Stapledon in 1919. 



I can only make brief reference to another important function of the Institute which 

 deals with the danger to the British, potato crop occasioned by the disease synchitrium 

 eudobioticum. This can be met, as far as our present knowledge goes, only by creating 

 a wide series of varieties of potatoes immune to the disease, and this is being done with 

 increasing success by our plant breeders. The tests for immunity which have an important 

 relation to the Ministry's legal control of the disease, are of great importance and have 

 hitherto been carried out directly by the Ministry. This duty, however, like that of Official 

 Seed Testing h?tS now been devolved on the Institute, which has acquired for the purpose 



