Scheffelsaat [German]

In the grand duchy of Oldenburg, since 1946 part of Lower Saxony, ? – 19^th century, a unit of land area, varying locally. Evidently originally a seed measure of land, since the Scheffel is a common German unit of capacity, and saat means “seed” or “sowing”.

The following equivalents were given in an official announcement of 30 October 1871.¹

Locale	Unit	Equivalents	Area in square Oldenburg Fuss	Approx. area in square meters
Esens parish	Essener Scheffelsaat	20 Kannen	14000	1226
Damme district	Osnabrücker Scheffelsaat	54 square Calenberger Ruten	13500	1182
Wildeshausen district	Wildeshausen Scheffelsaat	16 Kannen each of 710 square Fuss	11360	995
Vechta and Steinfeld districts	Bechtaer Scheffelsaat	18 Kannen each of 620 square Fuss	11160	977
Damme district	Dammer Scheffelsaat	16 Kannen each of 675 square Fuss	10800	945
Löningen district	Sagterlander Scheffelsaat	18 Kannen or 16 Ring	10800	945
Cloppenburg district	Kloppenburger Scheffelsaat	16 Kannen each of 650 square Fuss	10400	910
Old Grafsch, Oldenburg, and the Delmenhorst district	Oldenburger Scheffelsaat	30 square Ruten each of 324 square Fuss	9720	851
Friesoythe, Altenoythe, and Barkel	Friesoyther Scheffelsaat	13½ Kannen each of 650 square Fuss	8775	768
Stedingerland	Stedinger Scheffelsaat	17½ square Ruten, each of 400 square Fuss	7000	613

1. From Beilage 2 zu Nr. 258 der Oldenburgischen Anzeigen vom 5. November 1871 (Supplement 2 to Number 258 of the Oldenburg Notices of 5 November 1871).
Reproduced in facsimile in
Wolfgang Hase and Gerd Dethlefs.
Damit mußsten sie rechnen...auch auf dem Lande. Zur Alltagsgeschichte des Rechnens mit Münze, Mass und Gewicht.
Cloppenburg: Museumsdorf Cloppenburg, 1994.

Page 89.