AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS. 287 



nearly iu the same condition as possible, and if necessary Lire 

 extra help to insure this. There are accidents which -happen — 

 such as rains coining' up — that no oversight can provide against. 

 They affect the experiment to some extent, but if carried on for a 

 succession of years, the probability is the next year one will be 

 able to avoid this, and get such an average as will form a guide. 

 The objection to the small plat has been stated : that if you make 

 an error at all in weighing, or in the size of your plat, or in any 

 particular, that is multiplied by just so many times as it is less 

 than an acre if you take that as a unit. If you take a larger piece 

 the multiplication of the error is not so great. 



We had some experience in the matter of small plats. One of 

 our farms in Chester county started before the one at the college, 

 and before the one at the western part of the State, and they 

 started some independent experiments — sowing little plats of 

 wheat of different varieties, and patches of one thing and another. 

 It was found that these patches were very difficult to care for. 

 Whenever we have small experiments the tendency is to increase 

 the number, and it is scarcely possible to keep them all separate. 

 The effect of that was that the superintendent, who was carrying 

 on the experiments pretty much on his own hook, allowed shocks 

 of wheat of different varieties to stand in the field, and would 

 thresh one and then another, taking several days in doing it, 

 thereby occasioning greater error than would come in the having 

 of large plats which were brought in and put in separate places in 

 the barn, and not having so many of them. In regard to the way 

 in which the plats should be laid out: I do not see exactly why the 

 gentleman thinks it is necessary to cultivate between the plats. 

 It seems to' me, if the grass between the tiers of plats has an 

 influence on one plat, it has that same influence on the other plat, 

 and so the same influence goes on through the whole series of 

 plats. There is the fact that we may use manure and we may 

 not; inasmuch as this system of experiments is one that is only 

 relatively compared, the same thing would be true if the plats 

 were not cultivated. It would not bring in any greater error, 

 probably, than if the plats were cultivated. The keeping in mind 

 of this one fact, that our results are only relative, I think clears 

 up many of the objections. Also in the feeding of animals, this 

 same thing holds good. I have only taken up the matters that 

 have been suggested by the remarks of the gentlemen here, and 

 given my views upon them, as I understand that is the object. 



