108 Agricultural Weights and Measures. 
offhand what was 144 x 144 ; whereas 100 x 100 is no long 
puzzle even to the slowest intellect. 
Nobody has ever defended scales of 7 or 9 ; because they 
fail on the first divisional attempt. The elimination of all odd 
scales — we use the word, of course, in its literal sense — is there- 
fore the first step of reform, one that even ultra-conservatives 
may be expected to support. Let All Souls’ College, Oxford, 
Winchester College, and Eton College give up their 9 gallons 
to the bushel, and the Port of Looe its 18 gallons (9x2) to the 
bushel. 1 The seven days to the week, however, apparently 
enshrine the 7 scale in an impregnable position. 
The fact that 8 bushels make one quarter constitutes a 
serious obstacle to reform. It is curious that this should be 
so ; but as the French say, “ the good and the better are 
always enemies.” We must give up the convenience of this 
perfect scale, however, because it cannot be worked out at 
either end. We can never get 64 lb. to the bushel as a fixed 
weight, and 8 quarters to the ton would be “ Irish ” indeed. A 
2-ton unit might be brought in, but it would have to consist 
of 4,096 lb., which is a very unwieldy quantity. Moreover, the 
bushel is primarily a measure, and local traditions and usages 
mostly attach to this view of it. Bushels are simply boxes, the 
monkish Latin word bussuli meaning both boxes and in a 
technical sense bushels. Our word “bushel” is simply this 
bussulus anglicized. 
The bushel or box is the most diverse of measures. The 
following are the chief bushels in present agricultural use : — 
1. The Monmouth wheat bushel of 80 lb. No wheat ever 
did or could weigh 80 lb. to the bushel, so that this must be an 
utter corruption and misuse. We suspect that the agriculture 
of the region was so bad that 80 lb. of corn had to be delivered 
to secure, on sifting, 60 lb. of clean wheat. These abnormally 
large bushels never occur in wheat regions proper. 2. The 
Chester wheat bushel of 75 lb. 3. The Aberystwyth wheat 
bushel of 65 lb. These three bushels used in the west and 
in Wales should be given up ; they serve no useful purpose 
whatsoever. 4. The Mark Lane wheat bushel of 63 lb. This 
prevails in the chief wheat counties, including Lincolnshire and 
the Eastern Midlands, East Anglia, and Essex with its former 
dependencies of Middlesex and Surrey, also in Kent. It is 
likewise the usual standard for all sales of beans, peas, tares, 
lentils, lucerne seed, &c. It has not been superseded by (5) 
the statutory bushel of 60 lb., which is the usual standard for 
maize, dari, rye, millet, American, Canadian, Australian, New 
Zealand, and Argentine wheat. The last named, however, 
weighs over 60 lb. as a rule, and the surplus is deducted on 
1 Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture, Yol. VII. 
