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 15 per cent. toolow. 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. 
