[ Chapter 32 was added to the revised and expanded second edition of N. H.’s best-selling The Compleat Tradesman, published in 1684. The chapter, which documented regional “weights, measures, and numbers,” helped popularize mensuration standards in a pre-standards age. As N. H.’s list in Chapter 32 records, some standards were set by statute — the size of a brick, for example, and of one type of pole/perch used in land surveys — but most were not, and instead followed “best commercial practices” within the trades. ]
C H A P. X X X I I.
For the better instructing of Young Traders, I have here added an Account of Weights, Measures, and Numbers.
Three Barly-corns make an Inch, two and a half a Nail. A Hand is four Inches, or Fingers breadth; 3 Hands is a Span, 4 Hands or 12 Inches a Foot, 2 Foot makes a Pace, 5 Foot a Geometrical pace, 3 Foot, or 16 Nails is a Yard, one Yard and a quarter, that is 20 Nails make an English Ell. A Dutch Ell or stick is three quarters of a Yard; which way they commonly measure Tapistry.
Six Foot makes a Fathom.
Ten Foot is a Gad, or Geometrical Perch, sometimes Nine foot.
Sixteen foot and a half is a pole or perch by the Statute.
Eighteen foot a Wood-land perch, used in Fens and Moors.
21 foot a Forest perch, used in Ireland or Lancashire.
18 foot three quarters a Scotch pole or perch.
4 Statute perches, or 100 Links make a Chain.
125 Geometrical paces make a Stade.
8 Stades, or a thousand Geometrical paces make an Italian Mile, used by Englishmen at Sea.
An English Mile is 1760 Yards.
8 Furlongs make an English Mile, as 8 Stades an Italian.
3 Italian Miles are an English League.
Four thousand Geometrical Paces make a small German Mile, five thousand a great.
Forty square Perches is a Rood, four Rood an Acre, that is to say, 160 perches in length, 1 in breadth; or 80 perches in length, and 2 in breadth; or 4 in breadth, and 40 in length, make an Acre.
Ten Chains in length, and one in breadth make an Acre.
Thirty Acres is a Yard Land, and one Hide of Land is a hundred Acres.
Ten Foot every way is a square, that is, a hund. square Feet.
How to measure Wood;
necessary for Country-men.
A Coard of Wood is four Foot over, four Foot deep, eight Foot long, being 128 Cubick Feet.
A Stack of Wood is 3 foot over, 3 foot deep, and 12 long, which makes 108 Cubick feet.
Block-wood, being great Logs, are sold by the Coard, small by the Stack.
A Cubick Foot contains 1728 cubick Inches, a cubick Yard 27 cubick Feet, or 46656 cubick Inches.
50 Foot of Timber makes a Load, 40 foot makes a Tun, 20 foot a Butt or Pipe, 10 foot an Hogshead.
18 Foot square, and 1 foot deep, or 324 cubick feet is called a Floor.
A Brick by the Statute should be 9 Inches long, 4 and a quarter broad, and 2 and a half thick; 500 make a Load, and 1000 of plain Tiles likewise.
How much Plank makes a Load.
300 Foot of 2 Inch Plank, 200 foot of 3 Inch Plank, 150 foot of 4 Inch Plank, 400 foot of 1 and a half Plank, and 200 of Inch make a Load.
— Excerpt from The Compleat Tradesman: or, the Exact Dealers Daily Companion, by N. H. (rev. 2nd edn., London, 1684), pp. 102–103.
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