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RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF LAUNDERERS, DRY-CLEANERS, AND DYERS OF NEW ZEALAND (INC.) This new organization was incorporated on 9th December, 1947, there being twentythree industrial, thirty-two institutional, and six ancillary members. Group affiliation has been arranged with the British Launderers' Research Association, the Canadian Research Institute of Launderers and Cleaners, the American Institute of Laundering, and the National Institute of Cleaning and Dyeing (U.S.A.). The technical and news bulletins of these organizations are being received regularly, in most cases in sufficient numbers for direct distribution to all members interested. Information likely to be of interest has been collated from various sources and sent to all members in a series of information circulars. Applications for directorship of the Institute were invited from United Kingdom and Canada as well as locally, but as the financial basis of the Institute has not been approved (mainly on account of lack of legislative authority for Hospital Board contributions) no appointment has been made. TOBACCO RESEARCH The Director of the Station, on the invitation of the Chief, Plant Bureau, C.5.1.R., Australia, attended a Conference at Brisbane of tobacco technical officers attached to Commonwealth and State services in Australia. Reports submitted to this Conference and the subsequent discussions indicated that the research programme so far carried out in New Zealand was sound and that the application of the results in the industry was considerably ahead of Australia. A disastrous flood in the latter part of the season affected the results of a number of the experimental plots and the yield and quality of the leaf. Research Work The research work in the past season, as in previous years, has been a co-operative effort carried out jointly by officers of the Cawthron Institute and of the Tobacco Research Station. Work conducted by the Institute has included chemical investigations relating to intake of plant nutrients and chemical composition of the tobacco leaf in the fertilizer and curing experiments ; disease surveys and investigations concerning their dissemination and control; tobacco soil surveys and the chemistry of tobacco soils. Work at the Tobacco Research Station has included all types of fertilizer investigations, variety trials, seed-production work, plant breeding, and disease and curing investigations. Valuable assistance was given by the Chemical Engineering Section of the Dominion Laboratory in devising kiln improvements for the more efficient curing of tobacco. Details of the research results have been published during the year in a series of papers in the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology, and further papers are in preparation. The area of land for growing tobacco has shown an increase of 330 acres over that for the 1946-47 season. WHEAT RESEARCH INSTITUTE Wheatgrowing.—ln the 1947 harvest the area of Fife-Tuscan grown increased by 2 per cent, of the total wheat area to 13-9 per cent., while Cross 7 was grown on 66-9 per cent. Varieties produced wholly or partly by the Institute now occupy about 85 per cent, of the total wheat area of the Dominion.

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