ROD, POLE, OR PERCH

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4230, 15 October 1935, Page 2

ROD, POLE, OR PERCH

ORIGIN OF TERMS It may have been a source of wonder to many how the lerms rod, pole, and perch ever came to be used in the measurement of land; why they arc of such inconvenient lengths. An article in tbe last number of the ‘ New Zealand Surveyor ’ explains the mystery. There is a certain property known to us, says the writer, containing one acre one rood one perch. The owner, jocularly referring to this area, was in the habit of saying that the perch was in the fowlhouse.

fie spoke more Indy than he knew. A friend has sent us from England a picture postcard of an old building with a most interesting archaeological note regarding it which throws light on our measures of length and area and their origin.

The open fields or strips of land were usually ten chains or 220 yards in length. This had been found the average distance that a team of eight oxen could comfortably draw the manor plough without stopping (a furrow long, or furlong;. The staff the driver carried was five and a half yards, or 16) feet long. This also had been found to be the most convenient length of a rod for reaching any one of his team that he thought needed a little gentle persuasion. Ploughed in tins way, an English acre would be ten chains long and one chain wide, and would represent a very good day’s work. When, therefore, the ploughman could use the staff as a pole, and measure 5) yards across the ploughing he knew that they had finished 1 210 square yards, or a quarter of an acre, and that four of these (22 yards or a chain) would mean the 4,840 square yards of our rather mysterious English' acre, and at night the same staff could be used as a perch for the fowls in their common dwellinghouse (common to the driver and his family as well as the fowls). In this way a staff five and a half yards of 16) feet long was used as a rod for driving the oxen; as a pole for measuring the land; and as a perch for the poultry when the day’s work was c ] onG: —the “rod, pole, or perch” oi our earlier days. Well, to think of that now. The modern brass box with five or ten chains length of steel riband wound into it is easier to carry than a 16) foot pole, and the surveyor gets over the country quicker than heavy-footed Hodge with his oxen plodding hi. way home. But his spirit is with us still, and his measures of length still bind us to Mother Earth and long-forgotten social life and “ standards of comfort.’