109 
Varying Weights of the Bushel. 
delivery. The 6th of the more frequently used bushels weighs 
58 lb., and is used for canary seed. 
Others may be briefly detailed : — 
7. The 56-lb. bushel. — Wheat when sold for chicken and other feed ; barley 
when sold for malting ; potatoes. 
8. The 53-lb. bushel. — Rapeseed when home grown. 
9. The 52-lb. bushel. — Rapeseed when imported ; linseed ; buckwheat. 
10. The 50-lb. bushel. — Barley when sold under the Act of 1882, but other- 
wise only when sold for feeding purposes. 
10. The 48-lb. bushel. — Gluten meal. 
11. The 47-lb. bushel. — Poppyseed ; sesame. 
12. The 45-lb. bushel. — Mangels ; Swedes ; Turnips. 
13. The 42-lb. bushel. — Malt ; English and Scotch Oats, except when sold 
under the Act of 1882 ; torrified wheat and barley. 
14. The 40-lb. bushel. — American oats ; Canadian oats ; carrots. 
15. The 39-lb. bushel.— Oats when sold under the Act of 1882. 
16. The 38-lb. bushel. — Russian, Roumanian, and Turkish oats ; undecorti- 
cated cotton cake. 
Here we have sixteen bushels all in weekly market use. 
Numbers 1, 2, and 3 are archaic and have long survived their 
purpose, while number 15 is a recent statutory creation which 
has “failed to please.” 
Similar perplexity attends the load in pastoral agriculture, 
for a load of new hay weighs 19 cwt. 32 lb., a load of old 
hay 18 cwt., and a load of straw 11 cwt. 64 lb. The railway 
companies are practical reformers in this matter and will 
only recognise the ton. Great good has been effected in recent 
years by this firmness of the different traffic managers. 
Passing from weights to measures, that is to say, to reckon- 
ing by the space or area occupied, we find that the ordinary 
measure of capacity is 4 gills 1 pint, 2 pints 1 quart, 4 quarts 
1 gallon, 2 gallons 1 peck, 4 pecks 1 bushel, 8 bushels 1 
quarter. This is an octave, or system of 8, the original formula 
being inclusive of a 2-bushel measure which has dropped 
out. Or the formula may have continued from 4 pecks 1 
bushel, 4 bushels 1 coomb, and 2 coombs 1 quarter. The coomb 
is still in use in East Anglia and contains 4 bushels, but it is 
usually regarded as a Danish peculiarity of this very Danish 
part of England. The word is said to be the early English 
cumh , which means a cup, but Professor Skeat is not a safe 
guide on agricultural derivations. A coomb consists of a 
quantity never associated with even the largest cups. 
Unusual local measures perplex by their diversity in com- 
paratively restricted areas. Thus, there is the boll, a word 
the use of which is said to follow where the Scandinavians 
held sway. We find it at Newcastle, Carlisle, Darlington, 
Berwick, Duns, Kelso, and Glasgow as still the ordinary 
measure by which corn is sold. But the Berwick boll is 
double a Newcastle boll, and it takes four Carlisle bolls to make 
