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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



never induce those who had habitually used the former 

 to adopt the latter in its stead. He did not believe 

 were a dozen farmers iu his district M'ho had there 

 departed from the old system of selling by weight since the 

 last enactment first came into operation ; so superior had 

 selling by weight been found in practice to soiling by 

 measure. There seemed to be a general desire, not only in 

 that room, but throughout the country, that some uniform 

 standard should be adopted. The question to be deter- 

 mined was what the standard should be \ and, as selling 

 by measure had been tried and found wanting, he thought 

 all parties must soon follow tlie plan of selling by weight. 

 He doubted whether the country was yet ripe for the 

 adoption of either weight or measure as a universal system, 

 but he was confident that the discussion of the subject 

 would ere long lead to a satisfactory decision. Sale 

 by 5Slbs. or 100 lbs. would be a very convenient mode of 

 selling. Either of those weights would form a very suitable 

 load for one man, whereas it was impossible to assert anj'- 

 thing of that kind with respect to 4 cwt. 



Mr. H. Trethewy (Silsoe, Ampthill) said it appeared 

 that whether they adopted a resolution in favour of weight 

 or one in favour of measure, they would equally offend the 

 prejudices of many districts of the country (Hear, hear). 

 They were told by Mr. Baker that in Essex measure had 

 been adopted and acted upon for many years, and had 

 proved perfectly satisfactory ; while, on the other hand, the 

 last speaker said, in effect, that in his part of the country 

 parties would not listen to a proposal to sell by measure. 

 It was quite obvious, therefore, that whatever course might 

 be recommended by that Club, the recommendation would 

 meet with great opposition in certain districts. It was of 

 course very desirable that some specific course should be 

 followed ; but he must confess that the question appeared 

 to him an exceedingly difficult one. If they had to start 

 afresh, weight would no doubt be generally preferred to 

 measure, as being the most easy and practicable system; but, 

 on the other hand, when all commercial regulations were, so 

 far as corn was concerned, based on measure, it was ex- 

 tremely questionable whether weight could be univsrsally 

 substituted for it. When this subject was first mooted in 

 the Club, the tithe rent-charge seemed to him to present a 

 great obstacle to any alteration ; and the more he had 

 thought on the matter since, the more had he felt the force 

 of that objection. The tithe- rent being based on a bushel 

 of wheat, if the bushel were required to co itain so many 

 pounds, in districts where the wheat was light the farmer 

 would have to piy an increased tithe-rent ; and, in like 

 manner, the producer who paid a corn-rent might, under 

 certain circumstances, be made to pay a higher rent than 

 the landlord was fairly entitled to receive. These ap- 

 peared to him very great obstacles to any alteration which 

 was to be carried out everywhere ; and he entertained very 

 strong doubts whether the Legislature could be prevailed 

 upon, through any resolution which they might adopt that 

 evening, or on any future occasion, to retrace its steps 

 (Hear, hear). The imperial measure now appeared so 

 natural — all the calculattens connected with corn were so 

 much based upon it— that in his opinion it would be im- 

 possible to upset it. He cordially concurred in many of the 

 remarks made by Mr. Wallis ; but he saw much greater 

 obstacles to the establishment of a uniform system than 

 appeared to have presented themselves to the mind of that 

 gentleman (Hear, hear). 



Mr. H. Tatam (Moultan, Spalding) must remind the 

 meeting that the imperial bushel consisted legally of so 



many square inches of water, which was to be of a certain 

 heat ; so that when they went back to the primary state of 

 affairs, they found that a bushel of wheat was constituted 

 by weight. He did not believe there would be any diffi- . 

 culty in arriving at a fair average weight for the whole 

 kingdom, or in prevailing upon the Legislature to establish a 

 uniform system. 



Mr. S. Sidney (of Peckhara) said there could not be the 

 slightest doubt that the question under discussion involved 

 difiiculties, but he saw no reason why they should not attempt 

 to grapple with them. A few years ago every county had 

 a metropolis of its own, and the farmers living in it never 

 dreamt of sending their corn to the London market ; but a 

 great change had since occurred, and it was absuid to 

 think of adhering to a system, simply because it had pre- 

 vailed among their ancestors. Here was corn sold in half- 

 a-dozen different ways in different districts, so that be- 

 tween weight and measure it seemed almost impossible 

 to understand the operations of the corn trade. Under 

 these circumstances the question was, how they could 

 best attain uniformity. They certainly could not attain 

 it by each dwelling on the particular plans followed in 

 their respective counties, and contending that theirs was 

 the only plan that could be carried out universally (Hear, 

 hear). It was an important fact, that wherever a ten- 

 dency had been exhibited towards change, it had been 

 in the direction of weight (Hear, hear). That was a fact 

 which the advocates of measure could not deny, and the 

 inference from which was obvious. They had before them, 

 as it were, that evening, the measure system on the one 

 side, and the weight system on the other ; and he hoped 

 they were not going to separate without having taken a step 

 towards telling the Legislature which of these systems they 

 thought best for the whole country (Hear, hear). They 

 might depend upon it that if they did not contribute to the 

 settlement of the question, it would be settled without 

 them. No one could imagine that the present absurd state 

 of things would continue very long. If a resolution were 

 adopted in favour of some uniform system of weights, the 

 wide extension of the educational movement would secure 

 the requisite knowledge for carrying it out in the schools 

 scattered throughout the country. 



Mr. Thomas (Bletsoe, Bedfordshire) said he re- 

 garded the question under consideration as a question of 

 weight or measure. He entirely concurred in the remark that 

 from '21bs. to 31bs. more or less might be put in a bushel by one 

 person than bj' another, according to the mode in which 

 the thing was done ; and, when that was the case, why, he 

 asked, should the imperial bushel be adhered to.' For a 

 considerable time he was not able to deal with a particular 

 miller, because the miller said his bushel was not large 

 enough (great laughter). Under thesj; circumstances he 

 offered to send his bushel to the county town, to be tried 

 by the regular tester, with the condition that he should 

 forfeit £5 if it were not true, and the further condition 

 that the miller should send his bushel also to be tested, and 

 forfeit £5 in case that were found defective. In point of 

 fact, he sent his own bushel, and it proved to be perfectly 

 correct. The miller then refused to imitate him in that 

 respect, and the dispute was terminated over a bottle of wine. 

 It was then agreed between them that his (Mr. Thomas's) 

 bushel should in future represent a certain weight ; and after 

 that principle had been adopted, he sold to his friend a large 

 quantity of corn, and they went on very amicably. He men- 

 tioned this merely to illustrate the difficulty there was in 

 always making the same weight with the imperial bushel 



