and Price of WJieat, ^c. 
351 
immediately preceding years, the last three of which were 
seasons of more than average productiveness, and of lower than 
average price, conditions which imply abundance. Then as to 
some of the excesses. It may be mentioned in illustration that, 
in each of the four consecutive years 1862, 3, 4, and 5, there 
was more, and in two of them very much more, than the average 
produce over the country at large ; and it was estimated that, at 
the harvest of 1865, there still remained over from the extra- 
ordinary crop of 1863, and the abundant one of 1864, wheat 
equal to from one-third to one-half of an average crop ; and that, 
even at the harvest of 1866, some of the crop of 1863 remained 
unthrashed. It may, indeed, be stated generally, that as a rule 
the excesses follow, as they should, seasons of high productive- 
ness, and the deficiencies seasons of low productiveness. 
Discrepancies between the two results for individual years are, 
in fact, inevitable ; and the figures strikingly illustrate the 
difficulty of the subject, so far as individual years are con- 
cerned. But if the bases of the estimates are correct, the results 
of the two methods should agree when averaged over a sufficient 
number of years. An examination of the averages for the 
different periods, given at the foot of the table, will show that, 
with the increased estimates of consumption per head for the 
last two periods, the agreement between the differently obtained 
results is really very close. 
Finally, as to the questions — whether our previous estimates 
of the consumption of wheat per head of the population, over 
the first two periods of eight years each, are correct? and 
whether we are to conclude that there really has been an 
increased consumption per head in the subsequent years ? 
There can be no doubt that the average consumption per head 
has increased in the United Kingdom as a whole since the 
establishment of free trade in corn ; and there can be but little 
doubt that it has done so less rapidly during the later, than 
during the earlier, years since that change. This will be the 
case, at any rate, with the much larger proportion of the total 
population which is comprised within England and Wales ; 
though the increased consumption has probably been developed 
later in Scotland, and perhaps in Ireland also. The amount 
consumed will obviously vary according to the prosperity or 
otherwise of the people, to the price of wheat itself, and to that 
of other articles of food also. With regard to the price of 
wheat, barring exceptional cases, there has been a general 
tendency to decline throughout the period to which our esti- 
mates refer. Independently of the influence of lower prices, and 
of the increased prosperity of the masses of the population, 
among the circumstances tending to increase the consumption 
