50 FOREST commissioner's REPORT. 



amount are worthy of the attention of all who have anything 

 to do with timberland.* 



With these facts in view take next the notes of a sample 

 half acre in the northwest part of this town where the timber 

 never had been cut. The stand upon it is not like that from 

 which our sample area of thinned-out growth was selected. 

 It is rather a piece of spruce land, without even the proportion 

 of hard wood which is there common. But it will illustrate 

 as well as another the principle which has been brought out. 

 Should this area be cut down to a standard of six inches at 

 twenty feet, with the destruction wrought it would hardly be 

 left in shape to produce twenty board feet per acre. On the 

 other hand, should careful cutting methods l)e employed and 

 only those trees taken which are over fourteen inches in 

 diameter, the timber that is left seems entirely sufficient to an 



*This contrast might, with justice, hu further heightened for tlie man who is 

 selling stumpage by tlie Maine rule. A stick G inches at 20 feet scales only 25 feet 

 B. M., while a tree yielding such a log has about 10 cubic feet actual wood con- 

 tents. That is, tlie seller gets a scale of only 24 feet for each cubic foot in his tree. 

 On the other band a tree 16 inches in diameter 4 feet from tlie ground and 70 feet 

 high has, on the average, about 46 cubic feet in it. From a tree of those dimen- 

 sions on which I happen to have full notes, a log was cut by the lumbermen 32 

 feet long, with a top diameter inside bark of I04 inches. This log constitutes 69% 

 of the total volume of the tree, and scaled as 2 16 foot logs, giving the butt one an 

 inch rise, gives 169 feet B. M. This is 3.7 board feet for eacli cubic foot in tlie wliole 

 tree, which shows that the man who lets his timber grow to a fit size, not only by 

 so doing gets an increased growth on his land, but he gets a better scale on his 

 trees when he does cut them. That, however, is pretty generally understood. 



The ratios between board feet and cubic feet here stated, seem to require a 

 justification of the ratio generally used in this discussion for converting cubic 

 feet of growth into board feet, the ratio namely of 4 to 1. That ratio is based in the 

 first place on the assumption that the increment on all trees of a stand will some 

 time be utilized ; secondly, tliat trees are not cut till they are larger than about 

 12 inches in diameter 4 feet from the ground ; thirdly, that they are utilized up to 

 6 inches in diameter, and the log scaled in 16 foot lengths with not over 10% dis. 

 count. These are assumptions that do not hold now. To meet the average of 

 present practice a better ratio probably would be 3 to 1. Some uniform rule was 

 necessary and it seemed better to use one which represents the most careful prac- 

 tice and is therefore more likely to hold in the future. 



A word further about the scale of the tree above mentioned will be of value. If cut 

 off at 40 f eet.it would, as known from caliper measures taken every 4 feet, have given 

 a log 9 inches in diameter at the top. Ordinary practice again scales this as 2 20-foot 

 logs, giving the butt one 2 inches rise. So cut and scaled, the tree yields 168 board 

 feet, one less than before. And yet the second log contains 16 per cent more wood 

 than the first. This example, which, as practical men know, is thoroughly typical, 

 shows clearly one of the beauties of current methods of measuring lumber— shows 

 how use of the Maine scale rule, or any scale rule which measures diameter at 

 the top end, puts a premium on lumber waste. Tliis matter is commended to 

 consideration. It is more fullj' dealt with on later pages of this report. 



