78 Home Produce , Imports , Consumption , and 
one case of twenty-seven, and in the other of twenty-eight 
years ; and the basis, and the results, of the estimates so far, 
were passed in review. Lastly, in The Field of February 12, 
1887, the records were brought up to 1885-6, and some points 
were considered in reference to current discussions at the time. 
It is proposed in the present paper to bring up the records to 
date, thus completing a period of forty harvest-years, from 
1852-53 to 1891-92 inclusive. 
The completion of a period of forty years would of itsell be 
a sufficient reason for recurring to the subject, for bringing up 
the records to date, and for discussing the results with the view of 
determining how far the annually published estimates of the 
yield of the home-crop, of the requirements for consumption, and 
of the amounts to be provided by stocks and imports, have been 
borne out by the subsequent actual records of the net imports. 
Another and important reason for recurring to the subject at 
the present time is, however, the fact that, in 1891, the Foard, 
of Customs, the Board of Trade, and the Board of Agriculture, 
adopted a different weight per bushel in converting the recorded 
hundredweights of imported wheat into quarters, and, what is of 
more importance, they at the same time adopted a new factor 
for the calculation of imported “wheat-meal and flour” into its 
equivalent of wheat. 
Further, we understand that the Registrar-General’s annu- 
ally published estimates of the population at the middle of each 
year, between one census period and another, are founded on 
the rate of increase actually ascertained to have taken place 
between the two preceding censuses, but that after the next 
census results are obtained, showing the actual increase, cor- 
rection is made if necessary for each of the years of the previous 
intercensal period. It happens that the corrections so made 
from time to time are brought together in the Registrar-General’s 
53rd Annual Report, issued in 1891, and they are found to 
affect the numbers we have previously given for the population 
—that is, for the number of consumers — from 1860-61 up to 
the present time, sometimes in the direction of decrease, and 
in others of increase, more or less considerable ; and it is pro- 
posed to adopt these corrections accordingly, as will be fully 
explained farther on. 
Obviously it is desirable to adopt in the future, in our annual 
estimates, the new factors above referred to, for the conversion 
of imported flour into its equivalent of wheat, and of hundred- 
weights of imported wheat into quarters ; and also, as far as 
possible, to take into account any correction of the population 
that is available. Thus, if the population be taken at too low a 
