52 FOREST commissioner's report. 



Before the results lately arrived at regarding growth can 

 be made general, I must digress long enough to explain a 

 method of estimating the amount of small timber which had 

 all along up to this time been the subject of consideration and 

 experiment. Most lumbermen's estimates I find are made 

 not by aid of careful determinations, but by a spot judgment. 

 m'et'i'iofi of Much timberlaud exploring is done by topographi- 

 estunatmg ^^^ disti'icts. A man wants to know what amount 

 of timber can be hauled into a given stream, so he sets to 

 cruising the territory tributary to it and after having been 

 hrough it sets down without reference to acreage or averairet 

 stand a lump sum for the amount of timber standing and 

 available. This looks like, and is, a very primitive method. 

 It has given rise to tremendous errors, and those without 

 experience can do nothing by means of it. Men of good 

 judgment, however, who have seen much spruce cut, and on 

 land with the nature of which they are familiar, can reach 

 generally pretty accurate results. 



Some explorers again look for more things and make their 

 estimates in a more careful and systematic way. Some use 

 a system of counting to assist them, standing in one spot and 

 counting the timber trees to a distance of about seven rods in 

 ever}^ direction. Only a few of the more careful men I have 

 met, however, use any such method, and few of them I think 

 really depend on it. Fewer still study the soil or other con- 

 ditions of growth, or pay attention to the hard wood or to 

 young timber. On the last point, Mr. Newton's ideas were 

 for accuracy probably quite up to the average. 



For the present purpose some method of getting approx- 

 imately at the amount of young timber was essential, and it 

 was made the subject of much consideration and trial. In- 

 stead of the circle the square seemed to be the l)ost form of 

 surface. The advantage is that one side of this can be paced, 

 and the distance so measured used as a check in estimating 

 ^easm-e- ^|^g perpendicular sides. This measurement by 

 st"ps^."^° pacing is so satisfactory for many purposes, and 

 yet in our country is so little used, that it may not be amiss 



