No. 546] INFLUENCE OF STARVATION 323 



2. Cultural Conditions 



Having prefaced that the purpose of this study is not 

 to determine what chemical and physical factors produce 

 in the individual the effects which we designate as star- 

 vation, we are free to choose for the ancestral series any 

 plots which present reasonably extreme conditions of 

 starvation and feeding. 



The two fields in southeastern Ohio seemed perfectly 

 adapted to the purposes of the experiment. Their crops 

 of the common Navy beans presented the most diverse 

 appearance. The H field— that grown by Mr. Geo. A. 

 Harris bore a moderately heavy crop. The D field- 

 grown by Mr. Elmer Dille— seemed to have almost if not 

 quite as good a stand, but the plants were exceedingly 

 small. 



The differences were apparently not due to variety, 

 for both were, in so far as could be seen, identical. They 

 were obviously not referable to cultivation, for both had 

 been equally well tended. The differences seemed en- 

 tirely attributable to the exceedinglv poor soil of the D 

 field. 



Minute description of these two fields is quite unneces- 

 sary. They were about a mile apart, and hence under 

 the same general conditions of climate. Neither was 

 level. Field H was much longer than wide and sloped 

 from the ends towards the middle, where the ground was 

 apt to be a little too damp. Plot D was situated on an 

 exposed ridge where practically all the surface soil had 

 washed away. 



The plants originally growing upon these fields formed 

 the starting point for the starvation-feeding comparison. 

 This was in the fall of 1907. In 1908 transfers were 

 made, in order that we might be sure that genotypically, 

 as the pure linist would have it, the plants cultivated on 

 both fields were the same. Other varieties were also 

 added in 1908. These points are made quite clear by the 

 diagrams. 



The comparison furnishing the test of the influence of 



