Home Produce, Imports, and ConsumjAion of Wheat. 375 
England and Wales, or Scotland, or both, the average total 
amount available for consumption per head per annum in Scot- 
land has been calculated, and it is assumed to have been the 
same in each of the preceding ten years. This figure is mul- 
tiplied into the number of the population for each year, giving 
the estimated aggregate consumption, and from this the returned 
or estimated amount of home-produce is deducted, and the 
remainder is the quantity which, it is assumed, has been provided 
by the net imports. The amount of net imports into Scotland 
each year being so determined, this deducted from the returned 
amount for Great Britain gives the estimated quantity of net im- 
ports into England and Wales for each of the ten years in question. 
In all cases, however, the imports are calculated, not for the 
calendar, but for the harvest-years ; that is, from September 1st 
of one year to August 31st of the next. In the case of the 
returns for the United Kingdom for the whole period, and of 
those for England and Wales and Scotland during the last few- 
years, this has been done by the aid of the records for the 
individual weeks or months. But so far as Ireland is concerned, 
we have only had access to returns for each separate calendar 
year ; and, in its case, therefore, the imports for the harvest 
years have been calculated by adding one-third of the imports of 
one year to two-thirds of those of the next. For example — for 
the harvest-year 1852-3 (Sept. 1st, 1852 — Aug. 31st, 1853), one- 
third of the recorded imports for 1852, and two-thirds of those 
for 1853, taken together, are assumed to represent the imports of 
that harvest-year, and so on. 
Exceptional deviations from the above methods of record or 
estimate are explained in foot-notes to the Appendix-Tables, 
unless considered quite immaterial. 
5. Population. 
There are official returns, or estimates, of the population at the 
middle of each year for the whole peiiod of our review — for 
England and Wales, for Scotland, and for Ireland, each separately, 
and for the United Kingdom collectively.* 
In these records we have quite sufficiently accurate information 
as to the total number of mouths there are to feed in each 
separate part of the kingdom, and in the whole collectively, each 
year. As, however, the figures apply to the middle of each year 
we have estimated the number required to be fed by the home- 
produce of each harvest and the imports of the twelve months or 
harvest-year following (Sept. 1 to Aug. 31), by adding to the 
* Twenty- ninth Acnual Ef port of the Registrar-General, &c., &e. (1868), p. Ixx. 
