FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 53 



it wc devote ;i little space to it. In a rough country, and 

 through undergrowth and brush heaps, it may be thought 

 that such a method would not work. Such is not the case 

 however. Some allowances of course have to be made, but 

 those learned by practice on measured distances and in dif- 

 ferent kinds of country, a man travelling on his natural gait, 

 who counts his steps directly or b}' use of a i)edometer, 

 can learn to keep close run of his distances. One caution is 

 essential however. A man ought always to travel with the 

 same purpose. If one day he travels simply to get over the 

 ofround, and another slowlv, looking; about much to examine 

 the country, his results will not be likely, unless allowance 

 is made, to check up. 



In the exploration of the past summer, a brief experience in 

 surveying timberland was very helpful. In retracing lines, 

 I used to keep run of my distances in this way, noting when 

 a station was passed how the count tallied with the chaining. 

 Twenty-four hundred steps to the mile used to come pretty 

 close to it, an extra allowance being made on very rough land 

 or in thick undergrowth. At that rate it takes nincty-Hve 

 steps to the side of an acre. 



But an acre is too l)ig a piece of ground to look Bjstimating 

 over thoroughly — at any rate from one side, and bei""^^'"' 

 when the leaves are on. One would get fooled on distance 

 and on the size of trees. The count of small trees too, 

 woirld be uncertain. Half the distance is much more managea- 

 ble, and a quarter acre an area on which neither for size nor 

 stand can a man's eye be much deceived. So the plan Avas 

 adopted of traveling in straight lines across a country, count- 

 ing trees to one side to a distance of about forty-eight steps, 

 estimating at the same time their cubic contents and notinir at 

 the end of the same distance the results obtained. In this 

 way, long lines of travel and count were run through the 

 towns explored, in some cases systematically and for such 

 long distances that pretty accurate knowledge of the townships 

 so traversed is considered to have been aained. More often 



