♦ 
370 Home Produce, Impoi'ts, and Consumption of Wheat. 
There is sufficient evidence that the wheat grown at Rotham- 
sted pretty generally weighs less per bushel than the average of 
the home-grown wheats sent to the English markets. This is 
more especially the case with the grain from the field devoted to 
the growth of wheat year after year ; and the deficiency is gene- 
rally the greater the less favourable the season, and the less the 
actual weight per bushel. This, so far as the ??ow-experimental 
fields, and the heavily artificially manured plots in the experi- 
mental field, are concerned, is, doubtless, partly accounted for by 
the greater bulk of these crops than that of the average in the 
country. 
Considering these circumstances, and the fact already referred 
to, which Avill be further illustrated presently, that a given 
number of bushels per acre may represent very different amounts 
or weights of produce, and consequently of flour or bread, 
according to the weight per bushel of the grain, it was obviously 
desirable to reduce the actual number of bushels per acre to 
bushels of a given weight. In the construction of the official 
returns of the imports and exports of wheat and wheat-flour, the 
quantities entered in cwts. are reduced to quarters by calculations 
based on the assumption that foreign wheat averages a little 
under 61 lbs. per bushel measure. On the other hand, the 
average weight of home-grown wheat, over a series of years, is 
probably a little over 61 lbs. per bushel. 
The first modification to which the actual results obtained in 
the experimental field are subjected, before adopting their 
indications as a measure of the yield in the country generally, is, 
therefore, to reduce the produce per acre into bushels of the uni- 
form weight of 61 lbs. 
Again, as the soil in the experimental field is a somewhat 
heavy loam, with a subsoil of clay, and chalk below, and is of 
fair average, though not high wheat growing capability, it 
is obviously a question whether in the seasons most favourable to 
the heavier soils, the results may not be rather more favourable 
than those over the country at large, including the shallower, 
lighter, and poorer soils. In reference to this point, it is, of 
course, to be borne in mind not only that it is in such sea- 
sons that the better wheat soils will have the advantage, but 
also that it is upon the yield of these that the average much 
depends. 
The season in which, owing to the circumstances above alluded 
to, the average yield per acre on the selected plots in the experi- 
mental field might, if in any, be supposed to be in excess of the 
average of the country generally, is 1864, as already referred to. 
But, as then explained, it is considered pretty certain if there 
were any excess at all, that it was by no means so great as might 
be judged by comparison of the amount with the accounts given 
