Sarah,

Regarding your question of August 19th @ 1:36 p.m.

‘’Do you know what a homestead acre is? Is it larger than a statute acre?’’

Sarah, it’s all the same:

1 stt. acre = 1 homestead acre
1 stt. acre = 4 stt. roods
1 stt. acre = 10 stt.sq.ch.
1 stt. acre = 16 stt. pennylands
1 stt. acre = 160 stt.sq.rd.
1 stt. acre = 1210 sq.fth.
1 stt. acre = 4840 sq.yd.
1 stt. acre = 43560 sq.’
1 stt. acre = 92160 sq.suf.lk.
1 stt. acre = 100,000 sq.gun.lk.

The phrase ‘’homestead acre’’ arose from the Homestead Act 1862, when in certain United States Territories, a man was given outright freehold of 160 stt. acres, if he had lived on that 160 stt. acres for the previous five years.

Most of the land settled was a single perfectly square area of land of 160 stt. acres, out on the prairie. So the phrase ‘’homestead acre’’ was often used to describe the land as being made up of 160 strips of land that were 1 stt.rd. wide x 4 stt.fur. long.

Info @

http://www.weights-and-measures.com

And topic:

Common Superficial Measure
Suffolk Surveyors’ Measure
Gunter Surveyors’ Measure


The Steads
The Hanse Towns
The Hanseatic League

Come on xcole, make things simple.

160 acres is half-a-mile by half-a-mile, i.e. a quarter of a square mile

<<Most of the land settled was a single perfectly square area of land of 160 stt. acres, out on the prairie. So the phrase ‘’homestead acre’’ was often used to describe the land as being made up of 160 strips of land that were 1 stt.rd. wide x 4 stt.fur. long.
>>

I so rarely agree with Tony, :) but this is perfect nonsense. The plots were square. Do you have any idea how ridiculous a farm one rod wide is?

Virtually the entire Midwest and prairie were surveyed in townships, mostly six miles square, but with slight corrections for convergence of meridians. The one mile squares were divided into 4 square sections, 1/2 x 1/2 mile, or 160 acres. These were sometimes divided further into quarter sections of 40 acres. Many areas have roads at one mile and half mile intervals as a result of these square plots of land.

"Come on xcole, make things simple."


The only way he can do that is to express everything in metric. By using non-metric units, the word simple can not apply.

Why does Tony have to appeal to Xcole to keep it simple?

One of his main arguments for retention of Imperial is that it is commonly understood by everyone in the UK!

I would suggest that this particular conversion factor may not be known to at least 86% of the UK population.

Although I prefer metric, Customary can be a hell of a lot simpler than he makes it.

(one minor problem, all that land was surveyed in Survey feet, if you go converting to metric, so 12 m = 39.37' exactly.)

No one actually makes a distinction between homestead acres and regular acres. It would be more correct to say 1 homestead = 160 acres, and that is probably a unique bit of Americana, but 160 acres being 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile is as true in the UK as the US.