"Lorenzo L. Love" wrote in message
...
Repeating Decimal wrote:
The five gallon containers for plants always seemed small to me.
Today I got
to measure one of them. When I calculated the volume, it was 3.4
gallons not
five. Am I missing something? Is there a arcane standard for this?

Bill


That's about right. A gallon pot normally holds about 3/4 gallon.
Don't
try to make sense of it.

Back before plastic containers, one gallon plants were sold in metal No.
10 cans which contained only 96 fluid ounces (3/4 gallon). When plastic
containers came into common use in about the mid 1960s, the pots were
tapered but the height and circumference at the top were the same as a
No. 10 can and the plants were the same size but the container volume
evn less than a No. 10 can but still occupied the same space in shipping
containers and continued to be called one gallon plants. I think it is
just common usage and the nursery industry would get confused if you
called it a 0.75 gallon can. Has anybody ever complained about the
liquid volume of a 10 gallon hat? -Olin