124 Home Produce , Imports , Consumption , rmrf 
It will be seen that the aggregate value of the wheat 
annually required does not quite agree with that of the wheat 
annually available, and it is generally somewhat higher. The 
two values are, however, reckoned at the same rates per quarter 
each year ; but as the quantity “ available ” within the harvest- 
year sometimes includes a considerable excess over the amount 
required for consumption within the year, there being frequently 
a quantity brought forward, or carried over to the next or even 
subsequent years, it may be with a price differing from that of 
the year in which it comes in under the head of “ available ; ” 
and hence the discrepancy between the two reckonings. The 
results are, however, as nearly true as the facts admit of ; and 
they are sufficiently correct for the purposes of our illustration. 
Keferring now to the last column in the Table (XII.), it is 
seen that the cost of wheat per head to the consumer aver- 
aged, with considerable variation between individual years, the 
highest over the first eight years, and was not much lower over the 
next two eight-yearly periods ; there being at the same time a 
less reduction in price per quarter than afterwards. Thus, the 
average cost per head was 37s. 6d. over the first eight years, 
35s. 8 d. over the second eight, and 3Gs. Id. over the third eight. 
But, with the greater reduction in price per quarter over the 
fourth eight years, the cost per head was reduced to 33s. 6d . ; 
and with the still greater reduction over the last eight years, to 
24s. 8 d. per head. That is to say, with enormous imports, and 
extremely low price per quarter, the cost of wheat per head of 
the population over the last eight years was less than two-thirds 
as much as over the first eight, and little more than two-thirds 
as much as over the first twenty-four years of the forty. Lastly, 
it may be stated that, of the total cost per head, imported 
wheat supplied about 26 per cent, over the first eight years, 
about 40 per cent, over the second eight, nearly 47 per cent, 
over the third eight, about 65 per cent, over the fourth eight, 
and nearly 70 per cent, over the last eight years. However 
disastrous, therefore, the large imports of wheat, and the greatly 
reduced price per quarter, may have been to the home producer, 
the consumer has, so far as the cost of this staple article of his 
food is concerned, reaped immense advantages. 
General Considerations and Conclusions. 
Among our arable land crops, it is not only the production 
of wheat that has declined. The decline in the home crop of 
wheat may be said to have commenced about twenty years ago, but 
to have been the most marked during the last thirteen or fourteen 
