Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2009
This series of investigations embraces studies of the more important factors, external and internal, which govern yield in field crops of cereals. It has so far dealt with the causes and influence on yield of fluctuations in density of plant population and also with certain inter-field differences of environment. Throughout, an analytical method has been employed, in which periodic observations have been made upon small samples distributed over a representative acre in a field crop. The best size of sample has proved to be a one-foot length of row, i.e. row of plants as seeded by the drill. The basis of this method—a “census” of an acre of corn—has been described and critically examined in an earlier paper (Engledow(1)). Analyses of certain external factors affecting yield have been recorded by Engledow(2) and by Doughty and Engledow(3).