Cabbage Research Institute

The Cabbage Research Institute exists on the fringes of the town of Big Cabbage. It exists for the scientific study and promulgation of knowledge of all sorts of brassica. It is perceived from outside as something of a sinister place, over which a green pall usually hangs, and downwind of which plants tend to be strange and sometimes turn to watch you as you pass. Something akin to Granny Weatherwax's Herbs. But the most sinister part of the complex is the closed and heavily guarded research facility called Cabbage Down.

The advent of The Sto Plains Line, an innovation in mass transport of both people and goods, enhances its importance in the scheme of things as a vital part of the new brassica-based economy, that enables cabbage produce to reach the Big City in the freshest possible condition.

Annotations

In Great Britain, the John Innes Institute, which has close links with the agriculturally-minded University of East Anglia. In Discworld, would the CRI have links to, say, the Department of Extreme Horticulture at Unseen University?)