Price of Wheat , over 40 Harvest-years, 1852-3 to 1891-2. 103 
would of course yield cent, per cent., less the small loss in grind- 
ing — be included. On this point we are informed that the 
imports of wheat-meal are quite insignificant. The question 
still remains — whether the imports included any lai’ge propor- 
tion of flour of lower grades, or of pollards ? Here, again, we 
are informed that pollards are returned as such, and not 
included under the designation of flour. Then it is to be ob- 
served that, so long ago as 1857, Tooke and Newmarch desig- 
nated the imports as “ Hour,” and gave the relation of 3^- cwt. 
of Hour to a quarter of wheat as the basis of the conversion ; 
and, as has been seen, this relation has substantially been 
adopted up till quite recent years. 
Upon the whole, therefore, we conclude that the change 
recently adopted is a real correction of an estimate, dating from 
the time of the first adoption of the rough and ready reckoning 
of 3i cwt. of flour to a quarter of wheat. We think, however, 
that 72 for 100 of wheat is probably somewhat too low for the 
average of imported flours ; and that at any rate 73, if not even 
a rather higher figure, would probably better represent the 
relation in the case of imported flours. That English millers 
consider the figure 72 too high, judged by the yield in this 
country, seems irrelevant to the present question, which has 
reference to imported flour alone. About three-fourths of the 
flour imported into the United Kingdom come from the United 
States, and from our own inquiries we are led to believe that, 
both at Minneapolis and at San Francisco, the yield of barrelled 
flour for export is certainly not less than 72 from 100 of wheat. 
Then about 10 per cent, of our imports come from Austrian 
territories, and the average yield there is probably at least 74 
parts of flour from 100 of wheat. 
Under all the circumstances, therefore, we have decided that 
if in our revised Table we assume the now adopted figure of 72 
flour for 100 wheat as applying to the returns of imported wheat 
flour from the period of the commencement of our inquiry, 
namely, the harvest-year 1852-3, for the whole forty years end- 
ing 1891-2, we shall probably bring the figures more nearly 
into harmony with the actual facts, than by adopting any com- 
promise or partial scheme founded on probably more uncertain 
data. A further reason in favour of the plan proposed is that, 
as will be seen presently, the amount of wheat represented by 
imported flour bears but an insignificant proportion to the whole 
quantity available from all sources in the earlier years, and a 
gradually increasing one up to the present time. The consequent 
alteration in the records for each individual year of the forty 
will be seen on comparing the uncorrected results given in 
