and price of Wheat, Sj-c. 
349 
tion in other wajs, or the annual estimates of produce per acre, 
and of the aggregate home produce founded upon them, should 
exceed those founded on consumption and imports. It may be 
remarked that an increase of one-tenth of a bushel in the con- 
sumption per head per annum would, if derived from home 
produce, represent an increase of one bushel per acre per annum 
over the United Kingdom, assuming a population of 33,000,000, 
and an area under the crop of 3,300,000 acres ; figures which 
closely represented the actual facts a very few years ago. It is 
obvious that, with an increasing population, and a diminishing 
area under wheat, such an assumed increase in consumption per 
head would correspond to more than a bushel per acre. 
Table IV. (over-leaf) shows the amount of home produce 
required for consumption within each harvest-year, as calculated 
by deducting the imports from the estimated total requirement 
for consumption, adopting the increased estimates of consump- 
tion per head, as above assumed, for the last eleven years ; and, 
for comparison with the result so obtained, there is given the 
amount of home produce available for consumption each year, 
according to the annual estimates of the average produce per 
acre, with 2^ bushels per acre deducted for seed. The difference 
between the two is shown in the last column. 
When it is borne in mind that the first estimate (Col. 4) 
represents the requirement alone each year, and the second 
(Col. 5) the amount available for consumption from the estimated 
actual crop each year, it will be obvious that agreement between 
the two estimates for individual years is not to be expected. 
The amounts carried over from one harvest year to another will, 
of course, vary exceedingly according to circumstances, the in- 
fluence of which cannot with any certainty be estimated. We 
have, for example, no reliable information as to the quantity of 
home-produced wheat held in the farmer's hands, the quantity 
consumed by farm-stock, or otherwise used, or the quantity of 
foreign wheat held over in the granaries. Then, again, the 
actual length of the period to be provided for, dependent on the 
earliness or the lateness of consecutive harvests, has to be taken 
into account. 
Referring to the actual differences for individual years, as 
shown by the figures in the last column of the Table {IV .), 
it is obvious that, whilst there may be, and frequently is, an 
excess of wheat available over that required for consumption 
within the harvest-year, there cannot be an actual deficiency. 
Without attempting to account for each individual difference, it 
may be observed that the deficiencies which the figures indicate 
in some of the earlier years would doubtless be compensated, at 
any rate in part, if the balance were brought forward from the 
