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A bushel is a unit of dry volume
Dry measure

Dry measures are units of measures of volume used to measure bulk commodities which are not liquid. They are typically used in agriculture, agronomy, and commodity markets to measure grain, dried beans, and dried and fresh fruit ; formerly also salt pork and fish....
, usually subdivided into eight local gallon
Gallon

A gallon is a measure of volume of approximately four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use....
s in the systems of Imperial unit
Imperial unit

Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined and reduced....
s and U.S. customary units. It is used for volumes of dry
Dry measure

Dry measures are units of measures of volume used to measure bulk commodities which are not liquid. They are typically used in agriculture, agronomy, and commodity markets to measure grain, dried beans, and dried and fresh fruit ; formerly also salt pork and fish....
 commodities
Commodity

A commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative product differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk....
, not liquids, most often in agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu. The name derives from the 14th century buschel or busschel, a box.

Bushels are now most often used as units of mass
Mass

In physical science, mass refers to the degree of acceleration a body acquires when subject to a force: bodies with greater mass are accelerated less by the same force....
 or weight
Weight

In the physical sciences, weight is a measurement of the gravitational force acting on an object. Near the surface of the Earth, the Earth's gravity is approximately constant; this means that an object's weight is roughly proportional to its mass....
 rather than of volume.






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A bushel is a unit of dry volume
Dry measure

Dry measures are units of measures of volume used to measure bulk commodities which are not liquid. They are typically used in agriculture, agronomy, and commodity markets to measure grain, dried beans, and dried and fresh fruit ; formerly also salt pork and fish....
, usually subdivided into eight local gallon
Gallon

A gallon is a measure of volume of approximately four litres. Historically it has had many different definitions, but there are three definitions in current use....
s in the systems of Imperial unit
Imperial unit

Imperial units or the imperial system is a system of units, first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, later refined and reduced....
s and U.S. customary units. It is used for volumes of dry
Dry measure

Dry measures are units of measures of volume used to measure bulk commodities which are not liquid. They are typically used in agriculture, agronomy, and commodity markets to measure grain, dried beans, and dried and fresh fruit ; formerly also salt pork and fish....
 commodities
Commodity

A commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative product differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk....
, not liquids, most often in agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu. The name derives from the 14th century buschel or busschel, a box.
  • 1 U.S. bushel = 8 corn/dry gallons = 2150.42 cu in = 35.23907016688 litre
    Litre

    The litre or liter is a unit of volume. There are two official symbols: the Latin letter L in lower and upper case . The lower case L is often written as a cursive l to avoid confusion with the number 1 in antiqua fonts....
    s ˜ 9.309177 wine/liquid gallons. The original definition was the volume of a cylinder
    Cylinder

    Cylinder may refer to:* Cylinder , a three-dimensional geometric shape* Cylinder , the cartesian product of a set with its superset* Cylinder , the space within which a piston travels in an engine...
     18.5 inches in diameter
    Diameter

    In geometry, a diameter of a circle is any straight line segment that passes through the center of the circle and whose endpoints are on the circle....
     and 8 inches high, which gives an irrational number
    Irrational number

    In mathematics, an irrational number is any real number that is not a rational number ? that is, it is a number which cannot be expressed as a fraction m/n, where m and n are integers, with n non-zero....
     of cubic inches or litres, but later this bushel was redefined as 2150.42 cubic inches, about 1 part per million less.
  • 1 Imperial bushel = 36.36872 litres = 8 Imperial gallons ˜ 2219.35546 cu. in.
  • 1 bushel = 4 peck
    Peck

    A peck is an Imperial unit and United States customary units unit of dry measure, equivalent in each of these systems to 8 dry quarts, or 16 dry pints....
    s


Bushels are now most often used as units of mass
Mass

In physical science, mass refers to the degree of acceleration a body acquires when subject to a force: bodies with greater mass are accelerated less by the same force....
 or weight
Weight

In the physical sciences, weight is a measurement of the gravitational force acting on an object. Near the surface of the Earth, the Earth's gravity is approximately constant; this means that an object's weight is roughly proportional to its mass....
 rather than of volume. The bushels in which grains are bought and sold on commodity
Commodity

A commodity is anything for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative product differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk....
 markets or at local grain elevator
Grain elevator

Grain elevators are buildings or complexes of buildings for storage and shipment of grain. They were invented in 1842 in Buffalo, New York, by Joseph Dart, who first developed a steam-powered mechanism, called a marine leg, for scooping grain out of the hulls of ships directly into storage silos....
s, 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 the moisture content. Some of the more common ones are:

  • Oats
    • USA: 32 lb = 14.51495584 kg
    • Canada
      Canada

      Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
      : 34 lb = 15.42214058 kg
  • Barley
    Barley

    Barley is an annual plant cereal grain derived from the grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food, as well as the making of alcoholic beverages beer and whisky....
    : 48 lb = 21.77243376 kg
  • Malted barley
    Malt

    Malting is a process applied to cereal grains, in which the grains are made to germinate by soaking in water and are then quickly halted from germinating further by drying/heating with hot air....
    : 34 lb = 15.42214058 kg
  • Shelled maize
    Maize

    Maize , known as corn in some countries, is a cereal domesticated in Mesoamerica and subsequently spread throughout the American continents....
     (corn) at 15.5% moisture by weight: 56 lb = 25.40117272 kg
  • Wheat
    Wheat

    Wheat , is a worldwide cultivated Poaceae from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal just above rice....
     at 13.5% moisture by weight and soybean
    Soybean

    The soybean or soya bean is a species of legume native to East Asia. The plant is classed as an oilseed rather than a Pulse . It is an annual plant that has been used in China for 5,000 years as a food and a component of drugs....
    s at 13% moisture by weight: 60 lb = 27.2155422 kg


Other specific values are defined (and those definitions may vary within different jurisdictions, including from state to state in the United States) for other grains, oilseeds, fruit
Fruit

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
s, vegetable
Vegetable

The term "vegetable" generally means the Eating parts of plants. The definition of the word is traditional rather than scientific, however, and therefore the usage of the word is somewhat arbitrary and subjective, as it is determined by individual cultural customs of food selection and food preparation....
s, coal
Coal

Coal is a readily combustion black or brownish-black sedimentary rock. The harder forms, such as anthracite, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure....
, hair
Hair

Hair is a protein filament that epidermal growth from hair follicle deep within the dermis. The fine, soft hair found on many nonhuman mammals is typically called fur; wool is the characteristically curly hair found on sheep and goats....
, and many other commodities.

Under the America COMPETES Act
America COMPETES Act

The America COMPETES Act of 2007 was signed by George W. Bush in August 2007.Included in its provisions were: Research and Development tax credits, the creation of a Teacher Corps program, an increase in skilled workers Visa s and increased science funding....
, the United States is to phase out units such as the bushel and replace them with the metric system
Metric system

The metric system is an international decimalised systems of measurement, founded by France in 1791, that is the common system of Unit of measurement used by most of the world....
 as used for all purposes in the rest of the world, and for all scientific and technical purposes world wide. It is therefore important to know how the bushel relates to the metric equivalent, and whether the bushels are used as units of mass or units of volume.

The name "bushel" has also been used to translate non-US units of a similar size and sometimes shared origin, like the German "Scheffel".

History


The bushel was originally a measure of capacity for grain. During the Middle Ages
Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
, the bushel of wheat was supposed to weigh 64 tower pounds, but when the tower system was abolished in the 16th century, it was described as 56 avoirdupois pounds
Avoirdupois

The avoirdupois system is a system of Units of measurement based on a pound of sixteen ounces. It is the everyday system of weight used in the United States....
. The bushel was rarely used in Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
, Ireland
Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
 or Wales
Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
 during the Middle Ages.

Until and before the 19th century there were even more gallons in use. Examples:

1792 cu in: from the standard wine gallon preserved at Guildhall
Guildhall, London

The Guildhall is a building in the City of London, off Cheapside and Basinghall Street, in the wards of Bassishaw and Cheap . It has been used as a town hall for several hundred years, and is still the ceremonial and administrative centre of the City of London and its City of London Corporation....
 1848 cu in: statute of 5 Anne
Anne of Great Britain

Anne became Queen of England, Queen of Scots and Kingdom of Ireland on 8 March 1702, succeeding her brother-in-law, William III of England. Her Roman Catholic father, James II of England, was Glorious Revolution in 1688/9; her brother-in-law and her sister then became joint monarchs as William III & II and Mary II of England, the only such c...
 c47 2118.4 cu in: ancient Rumford
Rumford

Rumford can refer to one of the following:...
 quart (1228) 2124 cu in: Exchequer
Exchequer

The Exchequer was a part of the governments of England , Scotland, and Northern Ireland that was responsible for the management and collection of revenues....
 (Henry VII
Henry VII of England

Henry VII was the Kingdom of England and Lordship of Ireland from his usurpation of the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty....
, 1091, with rim) 2130 cu in: ancient Rumford (1228) 2150 cu in (approx.): Winchester
Winchester measure

Winchester measure is a set of legal standards of volume defined in the city of Winchester, England during the tenth century and in use, with some modifications, until the present day....
, statute 13 + 14 by William III
William III of England

William III was a Prince of Orange by birth. From 1672 onwards, he governed as List_of_stadtholders_for_the_Low_Countries_provinces William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic....
. 2168 cu in - 16 spoonfuls: Exchequer (Henry VII., 1601, E.E.) 2168 cu in: Exchequer (1601, E.), corn 2176 cu in: corn (1688) 2217.44 cu in: coal, statute 12 of Anne 2224 cu in: Exchequer (Henry VII, with copper rim) 2227.2 cu in: Exchequer (1601 and 1602 pints) 2240 cu in: Exchequer (1601 quart) 2256 cu in: Treasury, being eight gallons for beer and ale

See also

  • Winchester measure
    Winchester measure

    Winchester measure is a set of legal standards of volume defined in the city of Winchester, England during the tenth century and in use, with some modifications, until the present day....
  • United States customary units
    United States customary units

    The United States Customary System for units of measurement, also known in the United States as English, Imperial or standard units, is the primary and most commonly-used system of units of measurement in the United States....


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