FOREST COMMISSIOXEH's KEl'UUT. 165 



put into use pine was the staple of the hunl)er cut of 

 this State. As a rule it was large timber, and only the 

 better parts of the tree, the clear trunk hunl)er, were worth 

 takinji". These trunks moreover were not driven whole. 

 Thev were sawed into lengths of from twelve to twenty feet, 

 just as the pine of the Northwest is now treated. The}-- 

 reached their final market for the most part in the form of 

 inch boards. 



The quantity of boards that could be cut out of a log was 

 all the buyer wanted to know in those times, so board feet 

 came naturally to be the term of measurement. Then since, 

 because logs were short, the little taper the}' had could be 

 left out of account, the top diameter of a log could fairly 

 be used with its lensth in determining contents. This 

 diameter could be very well measured bv a straisht rule. 

 Thus for the times and circumstances, assuming the correct- 

 ness of the figures. Air. Holland furnished to the people of 

 Maine a convenient and satisfactory measure. So far as I 

 know it worked well, just as similar rules, Doyle's and Scrib- 

 ner's, work to-day in the pineries of the West and South. 



Conditions in the lumber l)usiness, however, have ^^^^^'■"''' 

 now greatly changed, and several reasons can be ^"^'^^q^'^'e. 

 shown why the scale rule is now unsatisfactory. In the first 

 place, as Judge Buswell has discovered, there are irregular- 

 ities in its figures, and these, inconsiderable though they may 

 seem to be, are rendered important l)v the increased value of 

 lumber. The actual results of plotting, as Judge Buswell 

 says, should have been evened by some method of adjusting 

 differences. Secondly, most saws nowadays waste far less 

 than the quarter of an inch allowed. Thirdly, a large pro- 

 portion of our lumber cut is now used for pulp, and the scale 

 rule, throwing as it does a much larger percentage for waste 

 out of small logs than large, is unfair when applied to that 

 purpose. Slabs and waste, too, are now of value, while the 

 rule leaves them out of account. Lastly, trees are now gen- 

 erally cut whole, and the rule, basing its results on length 



