Statistical Technique in Agricultural Research

Recent advances is statistical method have given the research biologist a new and valuable weapon to aid him in the accurate interpretation of his data. Statistics is a branch of applied mathematics, and a comprehensive understanding of the theory is possible only to those of a mathematical urn of mind. In consequence, a full appreciation of the fundamental mathematics must remain the propagation of the few. On the other hand, there is no reason why those who are interested in statistics solely as an aid to scientific research should forego the advantage of applying statistical methods to research data derived from any standardilized experimental design. The interpretation of the results by means of the appropriate statistical formulas should then become a purely routine operation is rather technical in character, and several years’ experience with postgraduate students has shows that there is a real demand for a more elementary exposition of statistical technique. This book is an attempt to meet this demand and is essentially the detailed analysis of data from a representative series of experiments typical of some of the commoner statistical problems encountered by the average research worker. In certain examples, the original data have been slightly simplified in order to make it easy to follow the successive stage in the arithmetical calculations. It is hoped that these representative examples may serve as a practical guide to the research worker in the design and interpretation of his experiments. For the student who has to study the subject more deeply, they may even help toward an easier understanding of statistical theory as expounded in the more technical works.