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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XL VI 



allowed to become in the field, and after thoroughly dry- 

 ing stored until they could be studied. They were then 

 placed in a saturated atmosphere for a few hours until 

 the pods could be handled without snapping open, and 

 records made of the number of pods per plant and num- 

 ber of ovules and seeds per pod. The seeds were then 

 stored until thoroughly dried at laboratory temperature 

 and humidity, when they were looked over for weighing. 

 Particulars concerning the various characters will be 

 given in the special sections. 



D. Methods of Analysis of Data 

 1. Pertinent Comparisons 



The possibility of an influence of ascendant starvation 

 upon descendant characters is to be tested by a series of 

 comparisons. The number which might be made, and 

 with profit, is so great that space requirements impose a 

 stringent limitation. 



A first restriction is effected by basing the compar- 

 isons upon the simplest of the statistical constants. 



A second limitation is effected by the exclusion of all 

 comparisons showing the relative influence of environ- 

 mental conditions on different varieties. Possibly this 

 question will be considered in another place. Such inter- 

 racial and inter-varietal comparisons are in this paper 

 quite incidental to those which are strictly intra-racial 

 and intra-varietal. 



Finally the comparisons within the varieties must be 

 limited 11 to those which seem absolutely essential to our 

 purposes. The constants for the 40 series are given so 

 that the reader may make any comparison he deems 

 desirable. 



In the dichotomous system adopted for these experi- 

 ments, one branch of the stem material was subjected to 



11 In all we have three distinct varieties represented by 40 series of 

 material— 18 of Navy and 11 each of White Flageolet and Ne Plus Ultra. 

 If all the in(n — 1) comparisons within each variety were made for the 



