Winifred E. Brenchley 



163 



These figures are far more instructive than those previously dealt 

 with. They lay strong emphasis on the fact that overcrowding hinders 

 even development whereas if sufhcient room is available the plants 

 tend in both root and shoot towards the production of a fairly uniform 

 amount of dry matter — i.e. towards a more or less uniform growth. 

 With overcrowding the difference between the greatest and least weight 



Fig. 9. Diagram showing the number of grams of dry matter produced by each 

 of 64 crowded barley plants in the positions they occupied during growth. 



of the range is just twice the least weight, with shoot, root, and whole 

 plant, whereas in the spaced plants the difference is so small that it 

 only amounts to | the least weight of the range, one-eighth of that with 

 the crowded set. This corroborates and justifies the statement made 

 earlier in this paper that, other things being equal, in the absence of 

 competition for light there is a tendency towards the production of a 

 standard type of plant. 



