 That part of the Mount Betham grant which was later to be used for the King's School was granted to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society in the 1820s.During their occupation of the site the land had been cleared and fenced and the Society had erected suitable buildings, formed a water tank, trenched and manured and furnished the necessary stock for grafting "for the purposes of introducing the growth of the finest kind of fruit trees into the colony".The extent of the Society's buildings on the site is not known.