In article .com,
Sheldon wrote:

On Jun 12, 10:56?am, wrote:
your experimental design is flawed. you needed to mulch the other
with cypress or some other colored mulch as a control. bare dirt is
not a proper control to the red mulch. Ingrid







Jack Schmidling wrote:

We (my wife, as I said she was nuts) did an experiment with tomatoes and
red SRM mulch this year and I am eating crow.

The plants in the mulch row are at least twice as big as the row planted
in bare dirt... same plants only two feet away.

Bare dirt is the *only* proper scientific control against the red SRM
mulch... the poster says right there, "bare dirt".

Really doesn't need a control, not when planted in the same soil, in
very close proximity, and not when the result is so obviously such a
great difference in plant size, size being the only result being
tested. Using a single different mulch is not a scientific control,
using no mulch is the only practical scientific control because all
else being equal (which it is) that is precisely the only element for
which the test is being conducted... arbitrarilly tossing in some
other kind of mulch will only skew the test, because then you'd need
to test the red SRM against every other known mulch... and since
you're not the mulch goddess you can't choose which other mulch from
the many thousands to employ... why not choose peanut shells, or
buckwheat husks... you can't, the test is red against dirt. The test
as described is to compare the red SRM against no mulch and is exactly
what occured... *perfect science*. If after the test the "plants are
at least twice as big" (not just perhaps borderline difference to
argue about), then res ipsa loquitor, the scientific value of the test
by its results speaks for itself. By your logic you're assuming that
these gardeners regularly use some other mulch, but there is no such
evidence, but there is evidence to the contrary... asssuming ones
fantasy is not at all scientific. And if they do regualry use a
different mulch then that one and that one only would be the only
acceptible control in their case. In your world you can do as you
please... perhaps in your world you shred your soiled red panties for
mulch, perhaps you should run a control with your laundered red
panties... but this is about their world, and in their world the only
possible scientific control is *their* dirt.

Oh lord, another one come down from the mountain with his clay tablets.
Another turnip truck must have lost it's load. This ones got a real
'tude. Is it a full moon tonight?

- Billy
Coloribus gustibus non disputatum (mostly)