CHAPTER II 



THE MEASUREMENT OF RESULTS (Reports, I, 57; 

 II, 113; V, 7; VII, 7; XIII, 82) ! 



ONE of the first problems which presented itself at Woburn 

 was, how to measure the results of the experiments. It might 

 appear at first sight, that, with fruit trees, the matter is a simple 

 one, and that all that is necessary is to record the crops produced. 

 But a little consideration will show that this would be a very 

 inadequate means of measurement. Even if the crop records 

 could be dealt with in a simple manner, it is clear that any con- 

 clusions based on such records for one season, or even for one 

 period of the life of a tree, might be very misleading, and that 

 it is only the total yield throughout the whole life of the tree 

 which would give a satisfactory measure of the behaviour of that 

 tree. To obtain such records would require a length of time 

 for the experiments hardly compatible with the duration of 

 human life. 



There are other features, however, besides the length of life 

 of the plant, which cause special difficulties in horticultural 

 experiments, as contrasted with those existing in agricultural 

 experiments, these are : the relatively small number of plants 

 which it is possible to include in each experiment ; the necessity 

 for some branch-treatment, such as pruning, thinning of fruits, 

 etc., which introduces unknown factors into the results ; and 

 the large number of varieties which exist of each kind of fruit 

 tree, many of these varieties showing marked differences in habit 

 and behaviour. 



With trees such as apples and pears, it is only in exceptional 

 cases that the individuals constituting an experiment should be 

 planted within 20 ft. of each other : lesser distances may be 

 adopted with certain varieties of feeble growth, or where the 

 experiment is likely to be completed within a few years ; but even 

 greater distances must be allowed in the case of free-growing 

 standard trees. A distance of 20 ft. between the trees admits of 

 only a hundred trees to the acre, and if each plot were to contain 



1 These references, and similar ones in the text, are to the Reports of 

 the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm, a list of which will be found at the 

 end of this volume. 



T6 



