What are Bolls and Seeds?

[Dave Taylor]

At the Heritage Centre at Dunbeath, I found descriptions of the holdings in Braemore, dated 1818. One of the holdings, called Cairnfin, was held by William Taylor and the rent was £8. Two words in the description of the holding were strange to me, and even George Bethune, armed with a dictionary of Old Scots, was puzzled.
Here is the description:
"This small farm sows three bolls of oats, half a boll of bere and a half boll of potatoes, and the tenant has three horses, four milk cows, six young cattle and twelve sheep. The return will be a bout three seeds."
My question is: What were bolls and seeds — some kind of measure of volume? The Centre suggested a box with standard dimensions.
Can anyone help please?

[trinkie]

A BOLL - taken from my CHAMBERS dictionary -

a Measure of capacity for grain etc, used in Scotland and N.England. In Scotland usually 6 imperial bushels. In England varying from 2 to 6 bushels, also a measure of weight containing, for flour, 140 lbs

SEED - sorry cant help here - it could be an 'area'

I will search again later.

Trinkie

[golach]

From the Dictionary of Scots
http://www.dsl.ac.uk/dsl/

Seed = A peck of good bran, or new sowan seeds.

Boll = Boll, Bow, n.1 Also: bol, boill, boall, bowl. [Only Sc. and (late) northern English, perhaps repr. OE. bolla or ON. bolle, bolli bowl.] A measure of capacity for grain, malt, salt, etc., or of weight, varying for different commodities and in different localities.
Boll, a measure containing four bushels of wheat, six of oats, etc.

As a ploughman in the 50's my Father received a Boll of oatmeal each month, roughly half a hundredweight as part of his "Perqs" (Perquisites = part of his wages)

[bekisman]

Bit off thread, but as a young lad - 50+ years ago - my mother used to send me to the veg shop for "gallon of potatoes" (I think it was 10lbs)

[Bill Fernie]

When I was young in Edinburgh my mother used to send me to the corner shop for a "Forpit" of potatoes. I think it was about 3lbs weight. We moved from central Edinburgh when I was ten and the expression seemed to drop from the family vocabulary as the family had grown and we bought slightly larger amounts of tatties from the local co-op or grew some in the garden we then had.

I doubt if anyone uses the expression now but it would be intersting to know how wide spread it was. I never knew if it was only used in Edinburgh. I am not sure if that is the spelling as I don't think I ever saw it written down. It was not too hard to remember a fourpit of potatoes, a loaf of bread and a quarter of spam or hazlit. The pennies had to go along way in those days - the mid fifties.

[golach]

When I was young in Edinburgh my mother used to send me to the corner shop for a "Forpit" of potatoes. I think it was about 3lbs weight. We moved from central Edinburgh when I was ten and the expression seemed to drop from the family vocabulary as the family had grown and we bought slightly larger amounts of tatties from the local co-op or grew some in the garden we then had.

I doubt if anyone uses the expression now but it would be intersting to know how wide spread it was. I never knew if it was only used in Edinburgh. I am not sure if that is the spelling as I don't think I ever saw it written down. It was not too hard to remember a fourpit of potatoes, a loaf of bread and a quarter of spam or hazlit. The pennies had to go along way in those days - the mid fifties.
Bill, a Forpit was 3.5lbs for potatoes, my wife (a Leither) used to get sent for a Forpit of tatties often as a wee lassie she says, and you must have been rich to go for a loaf, we only went for "Half Loafs) and plain ones at that, none of your posh "Pan" loafs, and my siblings and I fought over the heels of the plain loaves

[Angela]

I was often sent out for a forpit of tatties in Leith in the late 1950s...and they had to be Kerr's Pinks as well.
There was a restaurant that us schoolkids used to go to for lunch as an occasional treat - ahhhh, spam fritters! :D ;)

[bekisman]

Spam Fritters; bought some in Thurso Co-Op last week £2.20 (half a weeks wages in the 50's?)

[Jeemag_USA]

Spam Fritters; bought some in Thurso Co-Op last week £2.20 (half a weeks wages in the 50's?)

Spam Fritters, is that like Polony or "Bologna" as it should be called, fried in batter??

[bekisman]

Hi Jeemag

Although you originated from this side of the Pond? Spam (Chopped Ham & Pork) came from the US in the 1940's it's all here: http://www.spam-uk.com/ (http://www.spam-uk.com/)
Not only do we buy the stuff we make it ourselves - well the batter that is.. lovely!

[karia]

Evening Folks,

Was surprised to learn recently that Chinese 'foodies' cannot get enough of the 'delicacy' we call Spam!

They dice it and add it to noodle soup,...the result is a thing of beauty,.....so I am told.:eek:

Karia

[Dave Taylor]

Thanks to all who’ve responded to my query.
I sneaked a look at the “Shorter” OED in Waterstones, and it said the boll was a dry measure of six bushels.
For the metrically minded, six bushels is roughly 212 litres;
for the old folk (like me) it’s a cube with sides of about two feet.

Now...we still have the problem of the “seed” measure.
Any more ideas on that?

[Ricco]

Thanks to all who’ve responded to my query.
I sneaked a look at the “Shorter” OED in Waterstones, and it said the boll was a dry measure of six bushels.
For the metrically minded, six bushels is roughly 212 litres;
for the old folk (like me) it’s a cube with sides of about two feet.

Now...we still have the problem of the “seed” measure.
Any more ideas on that?

See is you can get in touch with Victoria Cohen (of Balderdash fame) through the fan web site.