Te THEORY OF STATISTICS.
effect of the varying age at marriage must be estimated
afterwards.
10. But the correlation between (1) number of children of a
woman and (2) number of children of her daughter will be further
affected according as we include in the record all her available
daughters or only one. Suppose, e.g., the number of children in
the first generation is 5 (say the mother and her brothers and
sisters), and that she has three daughters with 0, 2, and 4
children respectively: are we to enter all three pairs (5, 0),
(5, 2), (5, 4) in the correlation-table, or only one pair? If the
latter, which pair? For theoretical simplicity the second process
is distinctly the best (though it still further limits the available
data). Ifit be adopted, some regular rule will have to be made
for the selection of the daughter whose fertility shall be entered
in the table, so as to avoid bias: the first daughter married
for whom data are given, and who fulfils the conditions as to
duration of marriage, may, for instance, be taken in every case.
(For a much more detailed discussion of the problem, and the
allied problems regarding the inheritance of fertility in the horse,
the student is referred to the original.)
11. Illustration iii. —The subject for investigation is the
relation between the bulk of a crop (wheat and other cereals,
turnips and other root crops, hay, etc.), and the weather. (Cf.
Hooker, ref. 7.)
Produce-statistics for the more important crops of Great
Britain have been issued by the Board of Agriculture since
1885: the figures are based on estimates of the yield furnished
by official local estimators all over the country. Estimates are
published for separate counties and for groups of counties
(divisions). But the climatic conditions vary so much over the
United Kingdom that it is better to deal with a smaller area,
more homogeneous from the meteorological standpoint. On the
other hand, the area should not be too small; it should be large
enough to present a representative variety of soil. The group
of eastern counties, consisting of Lincoln, Hunts, Cambridge,
Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Bedford, and Hertford, was selected as
fulfilling these conditions. The group includes the county with
the largest acreage of each of the ten crops investigated, with
the single exception of permanent grass.
12. The produce of a crop is dependent on the weather of
a long preceding period, and it is naturally desired to find the
influence of the weather at all successive stages during this
period, and to determine, for each crop, which period of the
year is of most critical importance as regards weather. It must
be remembered, however, that the times of both sowing and
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