Penny
I googled farming and math and it brought up an interesting site on The History of Ewyas
Lacy'. Their explanation seems to me to make much more sense.
•Field sizes are indicated both in ‘acres’ and in ‘days math’. The acres would be
“Customary acres” and would be only approximate to “Statute acres”. Land surveying was not
an accurate science at that time. A math of meadow hay was that cut by a mower with a
scythe in one day. Our much-abused word ‘aftermath’ comes from this usage. After math
originally being the grazing available after mowing.
Mair
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:49:38 +1000
From: "Dave Matthews" <matt42(a)westnet.com.au>
Subject: [POWYS] Meaning of '3 days math'
To: <powys(a)rootsweb.com>
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I wrote:
The other relates to Penny's question, ie the
meaning of '3 days math'. I've found a couple of sources
that define 'math' as 'mown grass' or a certain quantity
of it. One also says that so many 'days math' indicates
the number of times land was able to be mown in a season,
so it was a measure of the quality of the land rather
than its quantity.
Penny wrote:
Interesting Dave. Thanks for that.
Sorry to push but it IS interesting...can you remember what
were the particulars of your finds, in context?
Regards Penny
These are the sources:
http://www.faqs.org/collective-nouns/Led-Mel/Math.html
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/math
http://dictionary.babylon.com/Math
Not a lot more in them than I quoted, I'm afraid.
The '3 days' looks to me to indicate that the land is able to be mowed on three
separate occasions in a season - I can't see it making sense any other way.
Regards
Dave in Oz
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