Home Produce, Imports, and Consumption of Wheat. 391 
the whole of Great Britain, about G bushels, and for the whole 
of the United Kingdom about 5^ bushels per head. 
11. Taking the population of the United Kingdom (including 
the Islands in the British seas) to be at the present time about 
30,800,000, and the average consumption of wheat per head per 
annum to be 5-J bushels, this gives a present requirement of 
rather more than 21 million (21,175,000) quarters. 
12. It may be estimated that, at the recent rate of increase, 
the population of the United Kingdom will have increased by 
rather more than 1 million at the end of the next five years ; and 
taking the rate of consumption per head as before, at 5^ bushels, 
there would then be required nearly 22 million quarters ; or, 
assuming the consumption to have increased to 5f bushels per 
head, the requirement would then be nearly 2'> million quarters. 
13. Unless the home-produce of wheat in the United Kingdom 
available as human food (about 12^ million quarters per annum 
over the last eight years) should increase, it is obvious that, even 
at the lower rate of consumption above supposed (p\ bushels per 
head), there will be required over the next five years an average 
importation of between 9 and 10 million quarters annually. 
