Statistical problems in field sampling for wireworms

The results obtained from the Wireworm Survey in the harvest year of 1939-40, the first in which sampling technique was used extensively for assessing wireworm populations, have been described (Anon, IWI; Finney, 1941). During the 1940-1 harvest year a very much larger number of fields, both grass and arable, was sampled, and these figures are the basis of the present paper. They enable the earlier brief discussion of sampling errors to be amplified and the limits of error to which any sampling is subject to be estimated