The Arrangement of Field Experiments

Abstract

The present position of the art of field experimentation is one of rather special interest. For more than fifteen years the attention of agriculturalists has been turned to the errors of field experiments. During this period, experiments of the uniformity trial type have demonstrated the magnitude and ubiquity of that class of error which cannot be ascribed to carelessness in measuring the land or weighing the produce, and which is consequently described as due to “soil heterogeneity”; much ingenuity has been expended in devising plans for the proper arrangement of the plots; and not without result, for there can be little doubt that the standard of accuracy has been materially, though very irregularly, raised. What makes the present position interesting is that it is now possible to demonstrate (a) that the actual position of the problem is very much more intricate than was till recently imagined, but that realising this (b) the problem itself becomes much more definite and (c) its solution correspondingly more rigorous.