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Here, undoubtedly, is the main issue of the whoIe dispute. Quantitative agrobiology has been put forward as a mathematical-biological discipline that embraces the whole world of rooted and green-leaved plants. If this discipline is found not to apply to all kinds of such plants and all essential factors of plant growth, it could hardly be called a science. It is therefore pertinent to determine whether the Mitscherlich equation is actually the authentic expression of a general law of the kingdom of plants.
= log A - C X
(2)
(3)
(The baule of a growth factor is that quantity of it that is necessary and sufficient to produce half of the maximum possible yield A. When x is measured in baules the first baule is found to produce 50% of A, two baules 7533, three baules 87.5%, four baules 93.7S%, and so on in the same diminishing order, each successive b a d e producing half as much as the preceding one until ten baules produce 99.9% of A, which for all practical purposes may be regarded as the limit of possibility). Such is the equation deduced by Mitscherlich, with the help of the mathematician Baule, for the ubiquitous law of diminishing increments of yield in agriculture. There can be no question that this equation takes account of the dominant characteristics of the indisputable law of diminishing increments, namely: the existence of a definite limit of yield fixed by nature for every kind of plant; the approach to this limit by continually decreasing increments of yield ; and, since the equation is logarithmic, the approach to the limit is by the rule of halved increments which excludes all other mathematical, expressions for this natural law. That is to say, any mathematical expression for the law of diminishing increments of yield in agriculture must be an expression of the rule of halved increments. There remains only one essential point not subsumed in the Mitscherlich thesis: the actual values of the constants c. These constants, whether physical or chemical, are specific for each growth factor. There is no theoretical way to ascertain the values of these constants; each has to be determined by experiment, just as the atomic weights of the chemical elements, the gravity
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