40 
their technical and commercial aspects. The Imperial 
Institute during recent years has been identified with 
investigations and reports chiefly as to the value for 
technical and commercial purposes of tropical agricul- 
tural products of all kinds. A large staff of men who 
have specialized in these products and their uses are at 
work in the laboratories of the Scientific and Technical 
Department. 
The Institute is in communication with Agricul- 
tural Departments in India and the Colonies on all 
these subjects, as well as with manufacturers and users 
of tropical materials at home and abroad, for whose 
benefit classified sample rooms are maintained, and the 
important products of the British tropics exhibited in 
the Public Galleries. 
The Imperial Institute is also called upon to afford 
special information respecting every aspect of tropical 
agriculture and its products, which it is specially 
qualified to procure and supply through its communi- 
cations, both with the countries concerned and with 
manufacturers. Much of the information thus collected 
hitherto has been published from time to time in the 
quarterly Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, and in 
special reports, also published. The work has, how- 
ever, now grown to an extent which requires a separate 
organization to cope with it, and this is now being 
arranged. It is to be known as the Technical Informa- 
tion Bureau, and it will serve as a centre from which 
trustworthy information with reference to the production 
and utilization of tropical agricultural materials of all 
kinds will be issued, and the Bureau will from time to 
time publish reports for the benefit of the agriculturist 
in the tropics as well as of the manufacturer at home. 
TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE. 
I desire now to pass to a subject of great importance 
to this Congress as vitally affecting both the status and 
the achievements of tropical agriculture. I refer to the 
provision of technical education for those who desire to 
make tropical agriculture the work of their lives. The 
subject is one which is claiming the consideration of all 
nations with interests in the tropics, and more especially 
