362 Home Produce, Imports, and Consumption of Wheat. 
Before attempting to apjjly the results in the experimental 
Avheat-field as a means of estimating the home-produce of 
wheat fiom year to year, and the consequent dependence of the 
population on home and foreign supplies respectively, it will 
be well to show how far the fluctuations in the experimental 
crop, according to season, have accorded in general character 
and direction with those in the crop of the country at large, so 
far as these are ascertainable by reference to the published 
opinions of various authorities, at the time or afterwards. 
With a view to such a comparison, and at the same time to 
provide for reference, in a very summaiy form, an useful record 
of the wheat-producing characteristics of the different seasons, 
there are given in the annexed Table (I.), some of the results 
obtained on certain selected plots in the experimental wheat-field ; 
and, side by side with these are given in the notes, after much 
more detailed compilation in the first instance, and as correctly 
as possible consistently with the necessary brevity, the substance 
of the opinions of the various authorities quoted. The plots 
selected are those the results of which have been published in 
' The Times ' shortly after harvest for some years past, as already 
referred to, namely : — 
Plot 3. Permanently unmanured. 
Plot 2. Having 14 tons of farmyard manure each year. 
Plots 7, 8, and 9. Manured respectively with different artificial 
mixtures, the same being applied to the same plot each year; 
the mean result of the three plots being taken to represent the 
produce by artificial manure. 
The mean result, each year, of these three Avidely-different 
and characteristic conditions — without manure, with farmyard 
manure, and with artificial manure — is taken to represent the 
average produce for the year. The particulars given are^ — the 
actual bushels per acre ; the bushels per acre reckoned at the uni- 
form weight of 61 lbs. per bushel ; the weight per bushel ; and 
the proportion of corn to 100 of straw. 
We shall refer in some detail, further on, to the question 
of the probable average yield of wheat per acre in the three 
main divisions of the United Kingdom ; but we may here 
observe in passing, that Mr. Caird * estimates the average yield 
in England at the present time to be 28 bushels. The coincidence 
with this figure of the results obtained on the selected plots in 
the experimental field, as recorded in the Table, is sufficiently 
remarkable. Thus, if we take the column of actual bushels per 
acre, we have, taking the average of the 16 years, 1852-67, 
28-!i- bushels ; or if we take the average of 17 years (that is. 
* ' Our Daily Food,' &c., p. 12. 
