14 



Growth 



Time in days 

 Fig. 2-1. Sigmoid growth curve. Fruit diameters in Table 2-1 plotted against time in 

 days. 



The first period of growth, in the most typical instances, shows the 

 regular acceleration of a mass increasing, so to speak, at compound in- 

 terest, the growth during any period being a constant proportion or per- 

 centage of the amount already present, and the "interest" being com- 

 pounded continuously. In Table 2-1 it will be observed that for the first 10 

 days the increase in diameter each day is an approximately constant 

 proportion of the diameter of the day before, though the daily incre- 



Time in days 

 Fig. 2-2. Graph of daily increments in fruit diameter, from Table 2-1. 



