Bushel (bu)

A traditional dry volume measure equal to 8 gallons used for agricultural goods.

The bushel is the hinge of the English dry measure system: four pecks below it, eight to the quarter above, and everything in the grain trade reckoned from it. Its physical standards were kept at Winchester from the Saxon period, and the Winchester bushel of 2,150.42 cubic inches remained the legal measure until 1824, when the imperial bushel of 2,219.36 replaced it. The United States, having left in the meantime, kept the Winchester figure, which is why an American bushel of wheat and a British one differ by about three per cent to this day. The vessel itself was a wooden tub, checked against the local standard and stamped, and it was large enough to put over a lamp: the biblical phrase about hiding one’s light under a bushel only makes sense if you know what the container looked like. Tithes were assessed in bushels, rents were paid in them, and the Assize of Bread set the price of a loaf against the price of a bushel of wheat.