Square Measure.—A square perch is 30} square yards ; 40 square perches are a rood (formerly also farthendele), 4 roods are an acre. The acre is also ten square chains, or 4840 square yards. Four square perches were antiently called a day's work. The rood * is the same word as rod: Mellis says four rods make an acre. The old terms which have come down from Domesday Book' at latest, the hide, plowland, carucate, and oxgang, are wholly unsettled as to what magnitudes they meant.
The cubic measures, or measures of capacity, do not immediately depend upon the cubic foot, except in the case of tim ber. Forty cubic feet of rough timber, or fifty feet of hewn timber, make a load.
The preceding measures have been un touched by the act which introduced the imperial measures. The old measures of capacity, the wine measure, ale and beer measure, and the dry measure, are now replaced by the imperial measure.
Old Dry or Corn Measure.—The gal lon is 268.6 cubic inches. Two pints make a quart, two quarts a pottle, two potties a gallon, two gallons a peck, four pecks a bushel, two bushels a strike, two strikes a comb or coomb, two coombs a quarter (eight bushels), five quarters a wey or load, and two weys a last. In measuring grain, the bushel is struck ; that is, the part which more than fills the measure is scraped off. Most other goods were sold by heaped measure, or tis much as could be laid on the top of the measure was added. This heaped measure (which was supposed to give about a third more than the other) was at first allowed in the imperial system, but has since been abolished. Coals, which must now be sold by weight, were sold by the chaldron. Three bushels make a sack,* three sacks a vat, and four vats a chaldron.
There was antiently a dell, or half bushel (also called a tovit), which makes the binary character of this measure almost complete. In the Pathway' we do not find the load or wey, f. and the coomb is also called a cornook (by Jonas Moore, eunuch), and the quarter also a seam./ The Pathway,' Mellis, and Moore, &c. mention the water measure of five pecks to a bushel (II Henry VII. cap. 4), and always in conjunction with dry measure : it means a dry measure in use at the waterside, and lime, sea-coal, and salt were measured by it. The common dry bushel was called the Winchester bushel ; this name is a remnant of the laws of King Edgar, who ordained that specimens kept at Winchester should be legal standards.
Old Win e§ Measure.—The gallon con tains 231 cubic inches. Four gills make a pint, 2 pints a quart, 4 quarts a gallon, 18 gallons a rundlet, 31-1 gallons a barrel, 42 gallons a tierce, 63 gallons a hogs head, 2 tierces a puncheon, 2 hogsheads a pipe or butt,11 2 pipes a tun. But the pipes of foreign wine depend more on the measures of their different countries than ou the above. The rundlet and barrel are generally omitted, but they are both found in writers of the sixteenth century. Mellis gives Hi gallons, and the Path way' 18 gallons, to the rundlet Tierce merely means the third part of a pipe, and the puncheon was antiently called the tertian (of a tun). The pottle (of two quarts) formerly existed. The anker of brandy, a foreign measure of compa ratively recent introduction into England, is ten gallons.
Old Ale and Beer Measure.—One gallon contains 282 cubic inches. Two pints make a quart, 4 quarts a gallon, 9 gallons a firkin, 2 firkins a kilderkin, 2 kilderkins a barrel, 1 barrels a hogs head, 2 hogsheads a butt, 2 butts a tun. Up to the year 1803, when the two mea sures were assimilated by statute, this was the beer measure, and the ale mea sure only differed from it in that 8 gal lons made a firkin. Nothing above a barrel is mentioned in the oldest tables, and the pottle (two quarts) is introduced. Two tuns were sometimes called a last.
Imperial Measttre.—This measure su persedes the old corn, wine, and beer measures. The gallon contains 277.274 cubic inches, and is 10 pounds averdupois of water. Four gills are a pint, 2 pints a quart, 4 quarts a gallon, 2 gallons a peck, 4 pecks a bushel, 8 bushels a quar ter, 5 quarters a load. Of these the gill and load are not, named in the statute, but are derived- from common usage. When heaped measure was allowed, three bushels made a sack, and twelve sacks a chaldron. This heaped mf.asure was abolished* by 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 49 and the abolition was re-enacted by . z, 6 Wm. IV. c. 63, which repealed the for mer. These acts leave the higher mea sures of wine, &c., to custom, considering them apparently as merely names of casks, which in fact they are, and leaving them to be gauged in gallons. It must be remembered that in former times any usual vessel which was generally made of one size came in time to the dignity of a place among the national measures.