the Royal Agricultural Society. 
27 
Qrs. 
Average quantity of wheat and flour (calculated as wheat)) 2 599 537 
imported in each of ten years, 1839-1848 J ->•-•> 
Ditto, 1850-ls'59 4,802,005 
Average increase Qrs. 2,273,568 
The results obtained by comparing the first and last, or the first 
five and last five, or the first, ten and last ten, of the twenty-one 
years under consideration, are thus so nearly the same, that no 
material error can in this case arise from basing our calculation 
on the comparison between the single years 1839 and 185 l J, the 
first and last of the series ; the difference in the quantity of wheat 
imported in those years being 2,101,622 quarters. 
The next step is to ascertain the increase of the population 
in the period under consideration ; and this we find, from 
the Census Tables for England and Wales, to have been 
4,127,819. The ordinary estimate of the consumption of 
bread-corn by a wheat-eating people is one-quarter (of 8 bushels) 
per head per annum. We have satisfied ourselves by careful 
inquiry that this is as near an approximation to the truth as can 
be expected from a rough-and-ready rule of the kind. The 
population of England and Wales would therefore require 
4,127,819 more quarters of wheat in 1859 than would have 
sufficed in 1839. The increase of importation of wheat and 
flour (calculated as wheat) in 1859 over 1839 was 2,101,622 
quarters. The balance therefore of 2,026,197 quarters of annual 
supply must have been provided by the increase of our home- 
grown wheat, or our population must have been muck worse fed 
than heretofore, the very reverse of which we know to be the fact. 
We do not pretend that this is an accurate estimate, or even a 
close approximation ; but we feel little doubt that it may be taken 
as the minimum increase of our home-grown supply, and that it 
is, in fact, much below the actual increase if that could in any 
way be ascertained. That this is so the following considerations 
will show : — In the first place, the increase of the population is 
an ascertained fact, and the estimate of eight bushels of wheat 
per head of annual consumption in England and Wales, which 
has been verified by the accounts of many different families and 
taken as a basis of calculation by various writers, is in all pro- 
bability not far wrong. If these data be granted, the amount of 
increased consumption is proved, and that portion of it which 
has not been imported must have been grown at home. But 
during the twenty-one years in question the ordinary wages of 
<' y labour have risen at least 20 per cent., and barley-scones 
! oat-cakes have almost disappeared as articles of regular diet. 
