MISCELLANY 221 



weight. Frequent inquiries come to the Department 

 of Agriculture for the ' ' government rule ' ' for ascer- 

 taining the weight of hay from measurements. There 

 is no such rule adopted by any branch of the govern- 

 ment service, so far as the writer has been able to 

 learn. So far as known, only one State (New Mexico) 

 has a law governing the case. According to this law 

 the number of cubic feet in a rick is determined thus : 

 Multiply the width by the over ; * divide the product 

 by four, and multiply the quotient by the length. 



This rule is not satisfactory. It is fairly accurate 

 for very narrow-topped ricks that are about three- 

 quarters as high as wide ; but for tall ricks, with well- 

 rounded tops, it gives results nearly 30 per cent, too 

 low. Another rule, recently published in a Western 

 farm paper, is as follows : Subtract the width from 

 the over ; divide by two, and multiply by the width 

 and then by the length. This rule is fairly accurate 

 for tall ricks (as tall as wide or taller) with narrow to 

 very narrow tops ; but for low, rounded ricks it gives re- 

 sults about 1 5 per cent, too low. The writer has devised 

 the following rule, which gives very accurate results 

 for ricks of any form. The greatest error is in the 

 case of ricks one- quarter taller than wide, or more, and 

 very narrow at top. Even for ricks of this shape the 

 error is less than 5 per cent. 



RULE FOR MEASURING RICKS 



Subtract the width from the over ; divide by the 

 hight ; then multiply successively by the over, the 

 width, the length, and by .225. 



* The "over" is the distance from the ground on one side over the rick 

 to the ground on the other side. 



