Practical Agriculture. 
469 = 2<?5 
if the sales returned are undoubtedly transactions between 
actors and merchants or millers, representing therefore higher 
igures than have been paid to growers ; and the total quantities 
( turned as sold in each year do not precisely correspond with 
lie known abundance or deficiency in the yield of that year. 
Vnother disturbing element is the diversity of weights and mea- 
ures in vogue ; and another, the difference between nominal and 
ctual quantity, which has been introduced by the weights at 
vhich corn is carried on the railways — on both of which sub- 
pcts I shall have statements to make under the head " Methods 
)f Commercial Transactions." For comparison of one year's 
quotations with another, the corn returns are probably within 
lear limits of the truth ; they are, at any rate, officially collected, 
alculated, and published by Government authority, and are 
)ased upon recorded sales, approaching 2,600,000 quarters of 
vheat per annum, or nearly one-fourth of the home-crop really 
ent to market. 
For sixteen years the prices have ranged as follows : — 
\.YEEAGE Prices of British Wheat, Barley, and Oats, per Imperial Average prices 
Quarter, in 150 Towns, in each of the Sixteen Years 1861-76. of grain. 
Year. 
Wheat. 
Barley. 
Oats. 
Year. 
Wheat. 
Barley. 
Oats. 
S. d. 
S. d. 
s. d. 
s. d. 
S. d. 
s. d. 
1861 
55 4 
36 1 
23 9 
1869 
48 2 
"39 5 
26 0 
1862 
55 5 
35 1 
22 7 
1870 
46 10 
34 7 
22 10 
1863 
44 9 
33 11 
21 2 
1871 
56 10 
36 2 
25 2 
1864 
40 2 
29 11 
20 1 
1872 
57 0 
37 4 
23 2 
1865 
41 10 
29 9 
21 10 
1873 
58 8 
40 5 
25 5 
1866 
49 11 
37 5 
24 7 
1874 
55 9 
44 11 
28 10 
1867 
64 6 
40 0 
26 1 
1875 
45 2 
38 5 
28 8 
1868 
63 9 
43 0 
28 1 
1876 
46 2 
35 2 
26 3 
One feature in the corn-trade seems to be the preponderating 
nfluence of the supply and demand of the moment ; so that a 
lush of imports at one particular season, or a hurry of home- 
grown grain to market during a few exceptional weeks of farmers' 
lecessities, appears to govern the movement of prices more 
lowerfully than any great-scale consideration of the year's 
vants and the whole world's probable supply. It is highly 
mportant, therefore, in connection with the matter of prices, to 
ook at the annual consumption, and home and foreign supply of 
)read-corn for the United Kingdom. 
For convenience I have collected into tables the statistics Estimating the 
vhich tell us what the United Kingdom wants in bread-corn and 
lour, and what proportions of the total supply depend upon the 
lome harvest and upon imports respectively. In the first Table, 
he first column names eleven harvest years (that is, periods of 
