Price of Wheat, over 40 Harvest-Years, 1852-3 to 1891-2. 81 
of the Statistical Society, and in this Journal, in 1880, as already 
referred to. We have now, however, experience in the use of 
such data for a period of forty years; and, with this aid, it is 
proposed further to examine into their validity, and to the trust- 
worthiness of the results arrived at, as tested by subsequent 
knowledge, and by the accordance or otherwise of the results 
so obtained, with conclusions arrived at with regard to other 
elements of the question. 
The Aggregate Home Produce, andj the A mount of it available 
for Consumption. — It is obvious that if the area under the crop, 
and the average yield per acre, are known, the aggregate home 
produce is very easily calculated. In estimating the amount of 
the total produce which is available for consumption, deduction 
has to be made for the amount annually returned to the land as 
seed. As explained in our first paper (in 1868), we then as- 
sumed 2£ bushels per acre (calculated on the acreage of the past 
year for the next) to be on the average so returned to the land ; 
and this amount was deducted from the aggregate produce for 
each year from 1852 to 1886 inclusive; but, for 1887 and each 
year since, only 2 bushels per acre have been deducted from the 
total home produce in estimating the amount available for con- 
sumption. 
The imports. — For the whole of the period to which our in- 
quiry relates, returns have been available for the United King- 
dom collectively, either of the net imports of wheat and of 
wheat-flour, or of the imports and exports from which the net 
imports could be calculated. For the separate divisions of the 
country the returns have not been so complete ; and, mainly 
for this reason, we have, since our first paper, in 1868, confined 
attention to the United Kingdom as a whole. For the United 
Kingdom, returns are available for the individual weeks or 
months ; and, as our estimates are made, not for calendar, but 
for “ harvest-years,’’ that is, from September 1 of one year to 
August 31 of the next, the records enable us to calculate the net 
imports for the exact period required. 
The Population. — The Registrar-General publishes an esti- 
mate of the population at the middle of the calendar year for 
every year between one census and another ; and from these 
data we have calculated the average number of consumers for 
the harvest-year. The middle of the calendar year being the 
end of June, and the middle of the harvest-year the end 
of February, the plan adopted has been to add to the number 
recorded for the preceding midsummer two-thirds of the 
difference between that figure and the number given for the 
next midsummer, thus bringing the estimate up to the end of 
VOL. IV. T. S. — 13 G 
