Bushel
A bushel is an imperial and US customary unit of volume, based upon an earlier measure of dry capacity. The old bushel was used mostly for agricultural products, such as wheat: in modern usage, the volume is nominal, with bushels denoting a mass defined differently for each commodity.
The name "bushel" is also used to translate similar units in other measurement systems.
Name
The word "bushel" was originally used for a container, and later as a unit of measurement. The name comes from the Old French boissiel and buissiel, meaning "little box". It may further derive from Old French boise, thus meaning "little butt".History
The bushel is an intermediate value between the pound and ton or tun that was introduced to England following the Norman Conquest. Norman statutes made the London bushel part of the legal measure of English wine, ale, and grains. The Assize of Bread and Ale credited to Henry III,, defined this bushel in terms of the wine gallon, while the Assize of Weights and Measures usually credited to Edward I or II defined the London bushel in terms of the larger corn gallon. In either case, a London bushel was reckoned to contain 64 pounds, 12 ounces, 20 pennyweight, and 32 grains.These measures were based on the relatively light tower pound and were rarely used in Scotland, Ireland, or Wales during the Middle Ages. When the Tower system was abolished in the 16th century, the bushel was redefined as 56 avoirdupois pounds.
The imperial bushel established by the Weights and Measures Act 1824 described the bushel as the volume of 80 avoirdupois pounds of distilled water in air at or 8 imperial gallons. This is the bushel in some use in the United Kingdom. Thus, there is no distinction between liquid and dry measure in the imperial system.
The Winchester bushel is the volume of a cylinder in diameter and high, which gives an irrational number, of approximately 2150.4202 cubic inches. The modern American or US bushel is rounded to exactly 2150.42 cubic inches, a difference of less than one part per ten million.
In English use, a bushel was a round willow basket with fixed dimensions, and its inside measurements were as followsbase diameter 12 inches, top diameter 18 inches, height 12 inchesthus giving a volume of 2120.58 cubic inches. A basket filled level to the top was a bushel. A basket filled to the top but overfilled to a height where it overflowed was considered to be a bushel and a peck, a generous measure. The 1950 song "A Bushel and a Peck" from Guys and Dolls contains the lyric "I love you, a bushel and a peck", meaning "I am overflowing with love for you".
Sometimes the basket was made 13 inches high, but with a ring of "waling" to mark the 12 inches height: these baskets had a volume of 9311.68 cubic inches.
Volume
Weight
Bushels are now most often used as units of mass or weight rather than of volume. The bushels in which grains are bought and sold on commodity markets or at local grain elevators, and for reports of grain production, are all units of weight. This is done by assigning a standard weight to each commodity that is to be measured in bushels. These bushels depend on the commodities being measured, and on the moisture content of the commodity. Some of the more common ones are:- Oats:
- * US: 32 lb
- * Canada: 34 lb
- * UK: 38 lb
- Barley: 48 lb
- Malted barley: 34 lb
- Shelled maize at 15.5% moisture by weight: 56 lb
- Wheat at 13.5% moisture by weight: 60 lb
- Soybeans at 13% moisture by weight: 60 lb
Government policy in the United States is to phase out units such as the bushel and replace them with metric mass equivalents.
Other units
The German bushel is the Scheffel. A Prussian Scheffel was equal to 54.96 litres.The Polish bushel was used as measure of dry capacity. It is divided into 4 quarters and in the early 19th century had a value of in Warsaw and in Kraków.
The Spanish bushel was used as a measure of dry capacity. It is roughly equal to in Castille.
The Welsh hobbit was equivalent to two and a half bushels when used for volume; when used for measuring weight the hobbit was dependent on the grain being weighed.