378 Home Produce, Imports, and Consumption of Wlicat. 
We have now explained in detail the nature of the data at 
command in relation to — the area under wheat ; the average yield 
per acre ; the aggregate home-produce, and the amount of it 
available for consumption ; the quantities imported ; the number 
of consumers ; the probable amount required, or the amount 
available, per head — in eac h main division of the United King- 
dom, and in the whole collectively. 
The result is that, unless we except Ireland, v/e have, neither 
in reference to the separate portions, nor to the whole of the 
United Kingdom, the necessary data relating to all the various 
elements of the question. Such, however, is the best material at 
our command ; and should some of the results, to which the 
application of it leads, betray obvious inconsistencies, we shall at 
least have succeeded in adding one more argument to the many 
hitherto adduced in favour of the official collection and publi 
cation of complete agricultural statistics. 
7. General Considerations. 
The following considerations will show how impossible it is, 
without accurate information on points in reference to which we 
do not possess it, to determine accurately, either the amount of 
wheat available, or the amount actually consumed, within the 
limits of any individual year. 
However correctly the average area under wheat over a series 
of years may be estimated for either, or for all of the main divi- 
sions of the kingdom, the breadth is known to vary very con- 
siderably from year to year, according to price, stocks of home 
and foreign wheat, prospect of foreign supplies, and the characters 
of the season and consequent condition of the land at the time 
for sowing. Thus, it is known that the area was unusually small 
in 1853; and it was reported to be deficient in ISlJl, and more 
or less over the average in 1852, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1862, 
1863, and 1864; whilst, owing both to the favourable character 
of the seed time, and the high price of wheat, the area of the crop 
just harvested (1868) was, it is believed, very large. But of the 
actual or numerical result of all the above influences, upon which 
so materially depends the accuracy of any estimates of the home- 
produce in any particular year, we have had absolutely no in- 
formation whatever in regard to England and Wales prior to 1866, 
very incomplete records in regard to Scotland, but much more com- 
plete so far as Ireland, about one-tenth of the whole, is concerned. 
With regard to the average yield of wheat per acre in any 
individual year, there is, so far as England and Wales and Scot- 
land are concerned, even less to rely upon in the way of actual 
record, than in regard to area. 
