Home Produce, Imports, and Consumption of Wheat. 379 
The harvest-year, which is the period of consumption to be 
provided for, may be several weeks shorter or longer, according 
to the earliness or the lateness of the two consecutive harvests. 
The season just past is a striking illustration of this. 
The stocks of home-produce in the stack-yard and the barn, 
and of foreign wheat in the granaries, is very different at one 
harvest period and at another. The amount carried over for 
consumption from one harvest-year to another will, therefore, 
vary very much accordingly. The quantity held over by the 
farmer will, other things being equal, be at a maximum when 
ths prices of grain are low, and two or more good harvests 
succeed each other. It was estimated that at the harvest of 1865 
there still remained over from the extraordinary crop of 1863, 
and the abundant crop of 1864, wheat equal to from one-third to 
one-half of an average crop ; and even at the harvest of 1866 
some of the crop of 1863 remained unthrashed. 
On the other hand, when wheat is kept for two or three years, 
a considerable, but an unascertainable, loss results from destruc- 
tion by vermin. 
The iceight per huslicl of the (jrain will very materially affect 
the amount of human food provided in a given measure of it. 
Thus, not to take extreme ranges, a quarter of wheat at the 
adopted average of 61 lbs. per bushel, will weigh 488 lbs. But 
if the bushel weigh only 59 lbs, the quarter will weigh only 472 
lbs. ; or if the bushel weigh 63 lbs. the quarter will weigh 
504 lbs. There is here, then, a difference in the weight of a 
quarter of wheat of 16 lbs., or about 3 per cent, below the 
average if the weight per bushel be only 59 lbs., or of 16 lbs., or 
about 3 per cent, over the average if the bushel weigh 63 lbs. ; 
obviously, therefore, a difference of 32 lbs. per quarter, or nearly 
7 per cent., between a crop of 59 lbs. and one of Go lbs. per 
bushel. To illustrate the point in another way : if the average 
produce for the year were 28 bushels per acre, and the weight 
pe^ bushel only 59 lbs., it would only yield about as much 
fiour as 27 bushels of the average weight of 61 lbs. ; but if 
the weight per bushel were 63 lbs., the crop of 28 bushels would 
yield about as much flour as 29 bushels at the average of 61 lbs. 
per bushel. 
Not only will there be a considerable difference in the amount 
of wheat to grind in a given measure of it, according to the 
weight per bushel, but there will, generally, be not only a lower 
percentage of flour, but flour of a lower quality, from the wheat 
of the lower weight per bushel. Then, again, the lower the 
quality of the wheat the more, probably, will be dressed out and 
used for other purposes than human food. 
W hen, on the other hand, the supplies are large, and prices 
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