CHAPTER II 

 MEASUREMENTS 



There are in use today for the measurement of length, 

 area, and volume two distinct systems, known as the English 

 and the metric. While the English weights and measures 

 are used almost exclusively on the farm, there are times 

 when some knowledge of the metric system is very con- 

 venient. 



ENGLISH MEASURE 



Yard and foot. The basis of the English system is the 

 imperial yard, the standard length of which is the distance 

 between two points on a metal rod kept in the Tower of 

 London at a temperature of 6o° Fahrenheit. The tend- 

 ency at the present time is to discontinue the use of the 

 yard as a unit of measurement. The only general use it still 

 retains is in athletics, for measuring dry goods, and for 

 expressing the range of firearms. The common unit of 

 measurement, and the one to which practically all others are 

 reduced for comparison, is the foot, the equivalent of one- 

 third of a yard. The foot is divided into two different 

 units, the inch and the tenth. The inch, used in mechanical 

 measurement, is one- twelfth of a foot, its subdivisions being 

 indicated by common fractions, such as half-inch, fifteen- 

 sixteenths inch, etc. The tenth is one-tenth of a foot, and 

 its subdivisions are always decimal parts of the larger unit. 



Since computations involving common fractions become 

 very cumbersome, the tenth or decimal subdivisions are 

 more convenient for computations than the inch and frac- 

 tional subdivisions. 



The tables on the following page will be helpful when 

 such computations are to be made. 



