102 Home Produce , Imports , Consumption , and! 
a quarter of wheat. Now, taking 34 cwts. of flour = 392 lb., 
and a quarter of wheat at the so long adopted weight of 60§ lb. 
per bushel =485^ lb. per quarter, the relation is 100 of wheat for 
80*77 flour. This is exactly the relation which we find to hold 
good in the official returns of flour in cwts., and its equivalent 
in quarters of wheat, for about the latter half of the period of 
our inquiry ; but, at any rate in some of the previous years, the 
relation has been 80 parts of flour to 100 of wheat, instead of 
80*77 to 100. Indeed, it is stated at the head of the Tables in 
some of the numbers of the “ Statistical Abstract,” that 1 cwt. 
of imported flour is reckoned as equivalent to 1 \ cwt. of wheat ; 
and when the returns are so given, we have, for the purposes of 
our estimates, calculated the cwts. of wheat so obtained into 
quarters of 488 lb., corresponding to 61 lb. per bushel. It 
makes, in fact, comparatively little difference in the number of 
quarters of wheat, whether flour is reckoned into wheat at the 
rate of 80*77 flour to 100 wheat, and the wheat in quarters of 
485^- lb. = 60§ lb. per bushel, or whether 80 flour to 100 wheat, 
and quarters of 488 lb. = 61 lb. per bushel, be adopted. 
Such were the relations adopted in the official returns of 
imported wheat, and of imported “ wheat-meal and flour,” in 
the conversion and representation of them in quarters of wheat 
up to 1890 inclusive. Commencing with 1891, however, wheat 
has been reckoned in quarters of 60 lb. per bushel = 480 lb. per 
quarter, and 72 instead of 80*77 parts by weight of imported 
flour have been reckoned as equivalent to 100 of wheat. Further, 
it is, we are informed, proposed to correct the figures which 
relate to 1890 and 1889 in future issues of the accounts upon 
the same basis ; and also, in summarising the imports of wheat 
and flour as wheat for a series of fifteen years, as is annually 
done in the “ Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom,” to 
raise the equivalent 1 per cent, each year, for the nine years 
1888 to 1880 inclusive; thus, in 1888, 73 flour for 100 wheat 
will be taken, in 1887, 74 flour, and so on, until in 1880 the 
old figure of 80*77 is reached ; but earlier than this no change 
will be made. 
The question obviously arises — how far the necessity for the 
change is due to corresponding real differences in the yield of 
flour obtained in the earlier and in the later years ? It is quite 
certain that 80*77 parts by weight of ordinary bread-flour have 
not been obtained from 100 of wheat; and as in the official 
returns of the Board of Trade the imports have generally been 
designated as “ Wheat-meal and Flour,” the question is sug- 
gested whether any material quantity of wlieat-meal properly 
so called — that is, simply the ground grain, of which the latter 
