IMPROVED STRAINS OF ROOTS 



37 



could evidently be accomplished with far greater certainty 

 when the work was done at the stations of the State under the 

 guidance and personal supervision of trained and perfectly 

 unbiassed experts in the service of the State. During the 

 years 1894-99 much valuable experience was gained, which has 

 since been further extended, and the experimental technique 

 now acquired may fairly claim to lend to the published results 

 a trustworthiness which could not easily be obtained by private 

 work or by less elaborate methods. 



In the year 1897 the State appointed a " State Committee 

 on Plant Culture" (" Statens Planteavls Udvalg ") to ad- 

 minister on behalf of the State the various experimental under- 

 takings in connection with plant culture carried out at the cost 

 of the State. The different Experimental Stations of the State, 

 each with its own manager, are co-ordinated under this Central 

 Committee. Helweg was appointed the Danish Government's 

 Root Commissioner. The Comparative Cultivations of the 

 various strains of roots are managed by a Sub-Committee 

 under this State Committee, the Sub-Committee consisting 

 of the managers of the Experimental Stations with Helweg 

 as its Chairman. This Sub-Committee draws up a detailed 

 scheme of the Comparative Cultivations, which is submitted 

 to and passed by the Central Committee at its annual 

 meetings. 



It was decided that the different strains, of which seed was 

 sent to the Comparative Cultivations, were to be judged accord- 

 ing to their character and classified according to their yield. 

 The question was therefore how to secure a reliable classification. 

 The accuracy of the classification was measured by the agree- 

 ment between the classifications at three stations. It was 

 found impossible to find room at each station for growing all 

 the different samples, but these were distributed in such a 

 way that each set of samples was sown on at least three stations. 

 In the later series, as the State has acquired more Experi- 

 mental Stations y it has been possible to grow each sample on 

 five stations. The number of parallel plots on which each 

 sample was grown on each station was at first generally five to 

 six, each being about ^th part of an acre. In later years 

 more plots were used, at present twelve on each station. 



