170 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



scale SO that at an even rate of stumpage their vahie would be 

 approximately truly got at. As a matter of fact, however, 

 that is not how it works. It works rather to leave those top 

 logs to rot in the woods. Particularly is this the case where 

 men are hauling by the thousand or cutting on stumpage 

 permits to sell. They know that they can get no pay for such 

 lumber at all commensurate with the expense of its handling, 

 so that methods being as they are and strong competition in 

 force, they must leave it or suffer loss. Thus it is that within 

 the range of the use of our Maine rule, it is only where the 

 owners of land cut for their own use, or where special study 

 has devised means to counteract the natural tendency of the 

 rule,* that any such lumber is hauled. Yet such lumber has 

 utility either at the saw or for pulp. If eastern men doubt that, 

 they have only to go over to the Androscoggin to see it proved. 

 That in most of the spruce lands of the State it is not now taken, 

 seems to me mainly due to the general use of a faulty scale 

 rule. Some figures representing the amount of the wastes 

 that occur in this direction will be found in the appendix. 



The principle I have tried to make clear is that a log with 

 strong taper cannot be fairly measured by taking its top 

 diameter onl3^ A diameter at its middle point, which a 

 caliper measure only is adapted to take, is the only single 

 diameter measurement that can be called representative and 

 fair. An example will help to make that clear. Thus a top 

 log with an upper diameter of () inches and 16 feet long 

 scales by the rule 20 feet. li. might have (3 cubic feet in it. 

 Experience shows that such a log so scaled is almost always 

 in our large forest areas left on the o-round. The BIodo:ett 

 rule, however, the caliper rule of New Hampshire soon to be 

 mentioned, gives the same log a value of 40 feet, and experi- 

 ence teaches that scaled in this way such logs are generally 

 taken and used. The latter figure moreover is not really an 



* A practice of this kincT that has worked successfully in one case on the Kenne- 

 bec may be of service to others. The practice in the case of long logs Is to measure 

 off 36 feet from the butt and scale that portion from the top diameter with the 

 usual rise. Whatever is above that, no matter how short, is separately scaled. 



