TOBACCO GROWING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 82, 17 January 1928, Page 5

TOBACCO GROWING.

dominion possibilities. iPer Press Association.) AUCKLAND, January 16. If New Zealand can produce the right kind of tobacco leaf, there is a very favourable market for the product in England, according to Mr G. Pottinger, an expert on the technical side of the industry, who arrived frm Sydney by the Niagara. For the past three* years Mr Pottinger has acted in an advisory capacity to the British Cigarette Company, with headquarters at Shanghai, and during an extended tour of the Dominion will make an independent investigation of tlie possibilities of the industry uv this country. Mr Pottinger said that some tune r , ( ro lie experimented in London with Nyassaland leaf, with wonderful results. After that he spent many months in French indo-Clnna teaching the French how to manufacture Virginian tobacco. As the tobacco-growing area of Nyassaland came into prominence after the war and the leaf produced there uas regarded with great favour by English manufacturers, many ex-offi-cers had taken up plantations, and the majority of them were doing very well. . . “The possibilities for tobacco-grow-inir are very great,” Mr Pottinger stated. “Great factors are the nnce at which the leaf can be produced and the grade of tobacco. Great Britain lias introduced a. special tariff for all tobacco grown in the Dominions, which allows it to be imported at about 4s a pound cheaper than the American product. This, of course, is tc encouiage inter-Empire trade.”