Re: Measurement units used in USA

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ayrshire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>"fb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>
>> For the "translation" of an agricultural program from
>> Dutch/English to American I am looking for units used by American
>> farmers. 
>> 
>> - How do they measure length / width of a field (in yards or
>> feet)? - How do they measure the area (size)? In acre with
>> decimals? - How do they measure Yield?
>> - How do they measure applied products (in fluid/dry ounces per
>> acre)? 
>> 
>> Are there any other US units that are different from the metric
>> (SI) units? 
>> 
>> Please reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Area of a farm or fields is expressed in acres such as my place: 9.4 
>acres with 7.4 tillable (arable) acres. Some areas aof the US, the 
>Midwest & Great Plains, we might talk about a section of land, which 
>is 640 acres, or multiple sections. Depending on the product applied, 
>the measurement may be gallons, pounds, tons, or ounces per acre. 
>Manure usually is gallon or tons per acre, fertilizer will usually be 
>pounds and herbicides or insecticides in ounces or pounds per acre.

But be aware that the Yankee gallon is smaller than the Pommie one.

See <http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/230/235/appxc/appxc.htm>
"General Tables of Units of Measurement"

In particular this section:
<quoting>
The present British gallon and bushel--known as the "Imperial gallon" 
and "Imperial bushel" are, respectively, about 20 percent and 3 
percent larger than the United States gallon and bushel. The Imperial 
gallon is defined as the volume of 10 avoirdupois pounds of water 
under specified conditions, and the Imperial bushel is defined as 8 
Imperial gallons. Also, the subdivision of the Imperial gallon as 
presented in the table of British apothecaries fluid measure differs 
in two important respects from the corresponding United States 
subdivision, in that the Imperial gallon is divided into 160 fluid 
ounces (whereas the United States gallon is divided into 128 fluid 
ounces), and a "fluid scruple" is included. 
</quoting>

Note:  nist <http://nist.gov/> is the US National Institute of 
Standards and Technology and has a lot of stuff that might be useful 
to frans.  I suggest using Google (Advanced Search) to search the site 
by using the restriction Domain/Only/nist.gov in the search criteria.


Cheers, Phred.

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