194 Variation in the Price and Supply of Wheat. 
to consume only 3^ bushels, (liminislics at the rate of about 47,000 
a year ; Scotland, which consumes 4J bushels, only increases about 
100,000 in five years, and will not ajBfect the calculation. These 
figures, applied to the estimated population of the United Kingdom at 
the end of five years, give a total of 22,370,749 qrs. Thus :— 
Population. Bush. Qrs. 
England and Wales .. 23,320,000 x = 18,461,583 
Scotland 3,280,000 x 4i = 1,742,500 
Ireland 5,200,000 x 3-^ = 2,16G,6G6 
Total .. 31,800,000 22,370,749 
The average annual consumption of wheat, per head, throughout 
the United Kingdom, has xmdoubtedly increased in the last 16 or 
20 years ; the Irish statistics alone will account for this. Messrs, 
Lawes and Gilbert think that this increase may, at the end of five 
years raise the average consumption from 5^ to 5f bushels, giving a 
total of nearly 28 millions of quarters. They follow Mr. Caird in 
estimating the average production of wheat at 1^ bushel per acre more 
than in 1850 ; and 27 bushels per acre for the United Kingdom. 
Assuming our fields to be well tilled, their fertility depends, as every 
agriculturist knows, on what we give compared with what we take 
from them : we shall not, in this country, soon become banlirupt in 
manure, but our expenditure in regard to human excreta is lamentable. 
Whatever interest and value, for purposes of comparison, may 
attach to the foregoing figures, perhaps the most important considera- 
tion connected with our statistics is, that the progressive annual im- 
portations of wheat increase beyond all proportion to the increase of 
the population. In the last eight years they increased 3,000,000 qrs. ; 
and in the two decades ending 1851 and 18G1 they increased, respec- 
tively, 2,043,000 qrs. and 2,082,000 qrs. We commend these facts to 
those who are engaged in solving the problem of the utilisation of town 
sewage. Will these increasing supplies continue to reach us at the 
same average price ? And what will bo the result of the next cycle of 
unproductive years? — which, unless history omits to repeat herself, 
will some day overtake us, in spite of our " modern agriculture." 
