FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 51 



belrman's working plan, however, generally considers only the most 

 profitable way of harvesting the merchantable timber. The forester's 

 working plan is made with a view also to the removal of the mature timber 

 in such a way as to hasten the production of a second crop. In spite of 

 much which has been said to the contrary, there is no other radical dif- 

 ference between the two. Both wish to make the forest pay as high 

 an interest as possible upon the capital which it represents. The lumber- 

 man is usually content to receive returns only once from the same area. 

 The forester lumbers with a view to lumbering again. Exactly the same 

 study of the quality and amount of merchantable timber, of the condi- 

 tions for its transport, and the market -open to it for sale, is necessary 

 under lumbering and under practical forestry. 



After the possibilities for practical lumbering have been investigated 

 thoroughly, the next step in the working plan is to fix those modifications 

 of ordinary logging methods which may be necessary in order to avoid 

 damage to the forest, and to better the condition of those trees which 

 are the basis of future crops of timber. One of these modifications which 

 may be advisable under forestry is the raising or lowering of the diame- 

 ter limit under which logging usually goes on. It may become necessary 

 to lower it, in order not to impair too seriously the density of the forest 

 and the probability of its reproduction. It may also be best to vary it 

 upon different areas, because the silvicultural condition of a forest 

 changes constantly and in the struggle for existence between the trees, 

 some kinds require assistance in one locality and some in another. Another 

 point to be considered in the working plan is the elimination of all 

 unnecessary waste. High stumps, the failure to run the logs well into 

 the tops, lodged trees left in the woods and any other form of slovenliness, 

 are as foreign to good forestry as they are to good lumbering. 



As a" Avorking plan contains directions for the lumbering of a forest 

 with a view to the production of future crops of lumber, it must in order 

 to justify these directions, state how large the future crops are likely to 

 be in a given number of years, after the area has first been logged over, 

 in addition to furnishing estimates of the present merchantable stand. 

 Since upon these estimates are based largely the rules of the working- 

 plan as to the amount of lumbering to be done now, how heavy it shall 

 be, and how soon the area is to be cut over a second time, and the hand- 

 ling of the forest generally, they must reach the highest degree of 

 accuracy practicable. 



The methods employed by the bureau of forestry in obtaining an esti- 

 mate of the stand consist of actual measurements of the diameter of all 

 trees, with a record of their number, quality and kind, upon a given por- 

 tion of the area to be taken in hand. Strips usually one chain wide and 

 ten chains long to the acre are run through the forest upon compass 

 courses, and are so distributed as to run through all types and qualities 

 of it. They are then worked up for general average and are used as 

 factors in calculating the total amount of standing timber. In order to 

 work up the present merchantable stand into cords or board feet, tables 

 are employed which have been constructed from actual scale of felled 

 trees of different kinds, and give their contents on a basis of diameter 

 taken at four feet from the ground, the height at which the trees in the 

 strips have been callipered. In several cases there has been opportunity 



