FAMOUS BOTANIST

Evening Post, Volume 105, Issue 4, 6 January 1928, Page 8

FAMOUS BOTANIST

DR. HILL'S VISIT ITINERARY ALTERED Owing to an alteration in steamer arrangements the Director of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Dr. A. W. Hill, will commence his tour of the Dominion lin Auckland instead of in Wellington as originally arranged. The distinguished botanist is at present in Australia, visiting Canberra and Sydney. He leaves next week for Tasmania, and will return to Sydney and leave for Auckland by the Ulimaroa, which is due on 24th January. While in the North Island, Dr. Hill will be shown kauri forests and forestry plantations. He will visit Eotorua and Taupo on his way south, and will examine the flax swamps and pastoral lands of the Manawatu on the way to Wellington. While in Wellington, Dr. Hill will hold consultations with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Besearch, visit Wainui-o-mata in company with the Director, of Parks and Eeserves, and be the guest of honour at a reception to be tendered by the New Zealand Institute of Horticulture in the Concert Chamber'of the Town Hall, where a special display of New Zealand flowers will be given. In the South Island Dr. Hill is to visit Christchurch, and will inspect the forest services at Hanmer and the plantations of the Hon. Sir E. Heaton Ehodes. Other visits include calls at Arthur's Pass, Hokitika, and Nelson. A walk from Arthur's Pass to. Otira is contemplated. It is doubtful whether time will permit of a visit to Dunedin, as Dr. Hill is to leave the Dominion on 13th February. The visit is the outcome of the policy-adopted by the Empire Marketing Board in making a grant to the Kew authorities to permit them to send abroad from time to time members of their staff tO study problems of economic botany. It is the aim of the Empire Marketing Board to make Kew a central bureau on Empire botanical problems—an object encouraged by the services that establishment has already rendered to the banana and rubber-pro-ducing portions of the Empire.