342 



THE AMEBIC AX NATURALIST [Vol. XL VI 



three times its probable error as statistically significant, 

 we note that altogether only six out of the twenty-eight 

 differences may be regarded as trustworthy. Of these 

 four are positive and two are negative in sign. Taking 

 means as for the two preceding constants, we find: 



Navy, Within Strains, A = A- .912 



Between Strains, A = + .912 



General Average, A = + .912 

 Ne Pins Ultra, ^-.253 

 White Flageolet, ^=—.946 



With mean differences as slight as these, one certainly 

 can not argue that the starvation of the parents has had 

 any pronounced influence upon the relative variability of 

 the offspring. 



Provisional Summary 



1. The foregoing pages are devoted to a statement of 

 problems, description of methods and the presentation of 

 a first part of the data secured in a biometric investiga- 

 tion of the influence of the starvation of the ascendants 

 upon the characteristics of the descendants in garden 

 beans. Since several months will necessarily elapse be- 

 fore all of the materials can be worked up, it has seemed 

 undesirable to withhold the constants already calculated 

 and checked, viz., those for number of pods per plant in 

 three varieties represented by forty series comprising 

 altogether about 21,000 individuals. The publication is 

 therefore partial but in no sense preliminary. Several 

 questions that might be discussed on the basis of the data 

 presented are passed over until more series of material 

 can be lined up. The conclusions drawn— even for num- 

 ber of pods per plant— are provisional merely. 



2. The purpose of this research was not to ascertain 

 the physico-chemical factors to which starvation is due, 

 but to determine whether such artificial depauperization 

 of the ancestors has any influence upon the characters of 

 the offspring. Such ordinary ' < fertile " and " sterile ' ' or 

 1 "good" and ''poor" agricultural land was therefore 



