Load (Timber)

The customary cart-load of timber, being fifty cubic feet of squared baulks or forty cubic feet of round logs.

The load began as exactly what the name suggests: what a horse and cart could reasonably haul. The two figures exist because round logs cannot be stacked tightly, so a cart filled with them holds less actual timber than the same cart filled with squared baulks. Rather than measure each cargo, the trade simply agreed on two numbers and let the shape of the wood decide which applied. The load remained the working unit of British timber merchants into the twentieth century, and appears throughout building specifications and estate accounts.