118 Home Produce , Imports, Consumption , cmd 
ment per head for the last two eight-yearly periods was S’SS 
bushels at 61 lb. per bushel; that the amount actually available 
over the first of these two periods was 5 66, and over the second 
5‘ 72 bushels at approximately the same weight, and 5’74 and 
5 - 83 bushels at 60 lb. per bushel. But the new reckoning shows 
an available supply of 5 '83 bushels over the fourth, and 5‘92 
bushels over the fifth period, at 60 lb. per bushel. The 
question arises, therefore, whether the actual figure indicated 
for the last period, namely 592 bushels, at 60 lb. per bushel, 
should be adopted in annually estimating the requirement in 
the near future, or whether, provisionally, the round number of 
6 bushels per head at 60 lb. per bushel should be taken for some 
years, until experience shows how far that estimate is borne out 
by the subsequent records of the total amounts available and used. 
It is in favour of adopting the higher figure that, after very 
full consideration of the great difficulty of forming anything 
like a trustworthy estimate of the amount consumed other than 
as human food, and also the fact that it bears, at any rate 
ordinarily, a very small proportion to that so consumed, we 
decided that there would be less error in fixing the estimate of 
requirement per head, so as to include the very small average 
consumption in other ways, than in attempting to estimate the 
consumption by stock, &c., separately. On this point it may 
be observed that the consumption in manufactures of any kind 
is very small : and that, generally, it is only the offal wheat 
that is given to stock, and this is excluded in our estimate of 
yield per acre, and therefore in the reckoning of the total wheat 
available. It is true that when the price is very low, not only 
will more offal be dressed out, and the sample so improved for 
sale, but more or less saleable wheat will also be consumed by 
stock ; but there is no reason to suppose that this has taken 
place to such an extent as to materially affect our estimates. 
Thus, if for the sake of illustration we were to assume that, 
with the present very low prices, one million quarters of saleable 
home or imported wheat were consumed by stock, this would 
represent, on our average area under the crop over the last 
eight years, more than 3 bushels per acre, and on our average 
population over the same period 0 - 21, or about one-fifth of a 
bushel per head. It will be admitted that in the past, at any 
rate, the quantity of saleable wheat so appropriated has been 
much less than this ; but what it may be under conditions of 
excessive supply and very low price, such as prevail at the pre- 
sent time, it is difficult to predict. 
Upon the whole it is concluded that it is safer to form an 
estimate of requirement per head in the near future, including 
