- tIBR/ 



30TAN 

 QARD 



A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XI. No. 262. 



BARBADOS, MAY 11, 1912. 



Pricb Id, 



CONTENTS. 



Pack, 



Page. 



Agrioiilturu in the Straits 



SettkiiiL-nts, 1910 ... 157 



Agi'icultuiu in Triiiiil.'i<l. 



1910-11 151 



Anthrax in St. Vincent, 



Fie'^isbition against ... 153 



Austnilian Fruit Industries 159 



Cotton Notes : — 



Cotton Experiments on 



the Gold Coast 150 



West Indian Cotton ... 150 



Department New.s 147 



Departmental Reports ... 155 



Field Experiments, Inter- 



jiretation of Results of 145 



Fundus Notes : — 



Hevea Rubber Stumps 

 as Possible Carriers of 

 Disease 158 



Gleanings 156 



Insect Notes : — 



Eel Worms, or Nema- 

 todes, Part II 154 



Tlie Pernicious, or San 

 Jose Scale 154 



Blanure. New Artificial ... 153 



Market Reports 160 



Notes and Comments ... 152 

 Noxious \\'eeds in Grenada, 



Eradication of 15.3 



Prize-Holdings Competi- 



tition in Jamaica ... 153 



Pulilicatious of the Im]>e- 

 rial Department of 

 Agriculture 152 



Rubber Experiments in 



L'ganda .■ 158 



St. Lucia, Medical Work 



in 152 



Sterilization and Fertility 151 



Students' Comer 157 



Sugar Industry: — 



Sugar from Shredded 



Cane ... 147 



Tea, Manurial Ex])eri- 



ments with 153 



Tonka Bean 149 



Vanilla, Curing of 14S 



West Indian Products ... 159 



The Interpretation of the Results of 

 Field Experiments. 



!T the meeting of the British Association for 

 ■ the Advancement of Science held at Sheffield 

 Son September 6, 1910, papers were read 

 before the Agricultural Sub-section, dealing with the 

 magnitude of error in agricultural experiments. These 

 have been jiublished recently, with suitable modifica- 



tions, at the suggestion of the Association, in a Supple- 

 ment to the Journal of the Board of Agriculture, 

 under the title The Interpretation of the Results of 

 Agricultural Experiments. Attention has been given 

 already to the subject in the Agricultural News, in an 

 editorial article in Vol. VIII, p. 369, and it is intended 

 to employ the papers mentioned for the purpose of 

 supplementino the information that was then presented. 



The first of the papers is entitled Field Trials and 

 Their Interpretation, by A. D. Hall, M.A., F.R.S., and 

 E. J. Russell, B.Sc, of the Rotbamsted Experimental 

 Station. This commences by pointing out that the 

 value of an experiment depends on the confidence that 

 may be placed in its results; that is to say, on the like- 

 lihood that, with a repetition, the same results will be 

 obtained. In agricultural experiments, the matter is 

 complicated by the fact that the material with which 

 the trials are made consists of living organisms, which 

 respond in various ways to diti'erent factors of environ- 

 ment. The import of this is understood when it is 

 considered that, in manurial experiments for instance, 

 the object is to compare the effects of the provision of 

 different kinds of plant food; but the real issue is not 

 as simple as this, for the manures may affect directly 

 the texture and water-holding capacity of the soil, so 

 that the response of the plants is not connected immed- 

 iately with the power of the manures to provide food. 

 The circumstance makes it necessary that the object 

 of experiments should be clearly defined, and that the 

 methods by which they are carried out should be made 

 as simple as possible. This is specially important ia 

 agricultural experimentation, as it has to be con- 

 ducted over a considerable period, for results to be 

 obtained, and any mistakes made at the outset can 

 rarely be rectified, so that they may cause it to be 



