Erythrocyte sedimentation rate was determined with 101 blood samples of the buffalo which were collected from the Rangoon slaughter house. Mean values of the ESR were 12.6 mm in 10 min., 36.9 mm in 20 min., 56.4 mm in 30 min., 81.0 mm in 1 hour, 95 mm in 2 hours and 111 mm in 18 hours, respectively, although tremendous fluctuations were observed among individuals. Calculated settling of erythrocytes per 10 minutes indicated 16.15 mm where 30-minute and 60-minute values were used. It was revealed that the speed of erythrocyte sedimentation was inversely related to the PCV value of the buffalo. Suggestion was made that the sedimentation test of buffalo bloods would be useless as a measure of morbid process of the disease because of the extremely rapid settling.

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In Kedah State of west Malaysia where double cropping of rice is commonly practiced, the latter half of the off-season cultivation is characterized by daily intermittent showes and sunshine. Main results obtained in the experiment that ascertains the feasibility of sun drying of the rice grains in such a climatic background are summerized as follows:
The moisture content of the grains at harvesting time was influenced by the position of the grains on the panicle, time of the harvest during a day, number of days from heading to harvest and lodging.
As for sun drying, the grains with 20% moisture content could be dried down to 10% level on concrete floor under the strong sunshine from 10: 00 a.m. to 3: 00 p.m. and also in only 3 hours in the afternoon. In the case of fully wet grains with 40% moisture content, which were exposed to rain after harvest, they could be dried up to around 10% under the bright sun from 10: 00 a.m. to 3: 30 p.m. for two successive days.
From the above mentioned results and the fact that there are quite many days with bright sun even in the latter half of off-season crop, the sun drying of the rice grains in this crop season is considered to be still possible, but the paddy dryer will be the only alternative to the former when bad weather lasts for a long period of time. Acknowledgment:
The authors owe thanks to a number of persons. En. Mohd. Tamin bin Yeop who is the project manager of Muda Agriculture Development Authority, Mr. S. J. Samy and all members of the Pusat Latehan Pengeluaran Padi offered warm help and valuable advice to us. Thanks are also due to the members of Meteorological Station in Alor Star for their useful suggestion and to Mr. Hidetoshi Yaoi of the OTCA for his great assistance.

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Degree of grain shedding expressed by strength required to detach rice grain from its pedicel or rachilla was measured with an unbonded gauge type transducer and null balancing recorder.Materials used were 59 paddy rice cultivars from South VietNam, 9 from U. S. A. and 52 from Japan. Results obtained were as follows.
1. In each of floating, single- and double-transplanting rices, both strengths of the breaking tensile and the breaking bending decreased from 1 to 3 weeks after heading, and it did not vary afterwards. On the other hand, grain weight reached nearly maximum 3 weeks after heading.
2. About 4 weeks after heading (the most suitable time for harvest), the breaking tensile strength was 89 to 130 g in floating rices, 75 to 143 g in singletransplanting ones and 64 to 120g in double-transplanting ones. The breaking bending stregth was 9 to 20 g in the first, 4 to 20 g in the next and 5 to 17 g in the last.
3. The breaking tensile and the breaking bending strengths in single-and double-transplanting rices were weaker than those of long grain type in American rices and most easily-shedding type in Japanese rices.
4. It seems that new varieties of single- and doubletransplanting rices which have similar degree of grain shedding to long grain type in American rices may be desired to be bred.

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Five castor plants of Shanghai local variety of small grain, whose seeds had been produced in Tokyo University of Education at Komaba, were grown with pot culture in a green house in 1973. The growth in length of main stem, every lateral branch and leaf was measured every second day.
The growth of both lateral branches and leaves proceeded according to the manner of growth curve equation known to be same as that of monomolecular autocatalitic reaction; that is, the growth was linear except the later stage, when the length was plotted logarithmically against number of days. The linear portion will be refered to as growth line in this summary.
The growth lines of leaves were arranged in almost parallel with fairly uniform intervals in order of appearance, i, e. from lower to upper leaves. In lateral branches, however, the growth of branches on a mother stem took place almost simultaneously.
The stem parts and 1st leaves (numbered in order of appearance) of branches attained to 10 mm long at nearly the same time as the first flowering of the racemes of their respective mother stems, in case of productive branches. In non-productive branches, mostly 3rd (numbered from top to bottom, see Fig. 1) or lower node branches, on the other hand, the stems and 1st leaves attained to 10 mm long later than the first flowering.
The plastochron indices (refered to as P. I.) of main stems proceeded linearly but very slowly at the begining portion of growth upto about P. I. 0.6, afterwards proceeded also linearly with much larger rate. In case of branches, P. I. increased linearly at rapid and similar rate to that of the later portion of main stems.
As to the growth rate (exprssed by regression coefficient of logarithm length to number of days for the above-mentioned linear portion) and increasing rate of P. I. with temperature effect eliminated, main stems were smaller than lateral branches, furthermore, some differences were observed among branches depending on the order and the position on the mother stem. That is, primary branches had larger growth rate than secondary branches, and the 1st node branches were rapider than 2nd node branches in increasing of P. I. The 3rd or lower node branches, mostly non-productive, had smaller growth rate and P. I. increasing rate than the uppermost two branches. The 1st and 2nd leaves had larger growth rate than 3rd and 4th leaves.
There was little difference in final length between the 1st node and 2nd node branches, both of which were vigorous and mostly productive. The 3rd or lower branches were shorter in final length than the uppermost two branches. Secondary branches were shorter than primary branches. This was probably caused, at least partly, by decrease in number of nodes under the long day condition.
The lower node branches showed larger ratio of logL_u to logL_f (as to L_u and L_f, see Fig. 5), sometimes close to 1. This fact suggested that those lower branches stopped growing during or shortly after the linear stage of active growth.
The comparison of growth including P. I. among branches of different orders and positions are being made about castor plants grown in field under natural condition.

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