The method of stocked quadrats is a sampling technique used to estimate the average number of elements in a large area, without doing detailed counting. The area is divided into equal-sized quadrats, which are then sampled. Sampling is quick, since elements are not counted, only noted for presence (1) or absence (0). The proportion of zeroes is then equated to the Poisson probability of zero, and the equation solved for the rate, . This estimates the average number of elements per quadrat, which can then be scaled up to give an estimate of their total.