Fisher R.A. The Design of Experiments

9th Edition. — Hafner Press, 1971, First Published 1935. — 256 p.The design of experiments is too large a subject and of too great importance to the general body of scientific workers, for any incidental treatment to be adequate. A clear grasp of simple and standardised statistical procedures will, as the reader may satisfy himself, go far to elucidate the principles of experimentation; but these procedures are themselves only the means to a more important end. Their part is to satisfy the requirements of sound and intelligible experimental design, and to supply the machinery for unambiguous interpretation. To attain a clear grasp of these requirements we need to study designs which have been widely successful in many fields, and to examine their structure in relation to the requirements of valid inference. The reader is advised that the detailed working of numerical examples is essential to a thorough grasp, not only of the technique, but of the principles by which an experimental procedure may be judged to be satisfactory and effective.