SOME PROBLEMS IN APPALACHIAN TIMBER APPRAISAL 327 



against, assuming as essential the accurate measurement of diameters. 

 One is the number of logs (16-foot basis) in the trees, and the other 

 is measuring the width of strip. The tendency of some cruisers is 

 consistently to overestimate and of others to underestimate ; the same 

 is true of the width of strip. These errors consequently may tend 

 to counteract. Check estimates on the work of individual cruisers 

 made under supervision are required at regular intervals for the 

 purpose of detecting any marked tendency to deviation in these 

 directions, 'and men who persistently show too high a factor of error 

 are considered suitable only for a compassmen and not volume 

 cruisers. 



The great obstacles to accurate and rapid work are the large num- 

 ber of species; it being necessary in many large tracts to record 

 individually the saw timber and minor products from as many as 

 twenty species of trees; the rapid changes in forest "types" or stand 

 classes ; the potent influence of relative attitude and aspect on value 

 and merchantability of the same species; the great variation in the 

 age of the trees within the same stand and, dependent thereon, the 

 variation in quality and soundness of the timber ; and the many kinds 

 of defects, especially internal defects such as shake, wormholes, and 

 old fire damage, which are local in their occurrence and which not 

 only influence the quality and value of the timber but are often of 

 such a nature as to exclude the timber from use as saw stock; the 

 frequent roughness of terrain and occasional dense ericaceous under- 

 growth. 



Adaptation of Volume Tables to Closeness of Utilisation 



Except in a few favored portions of the Appalachians where 

 freight rates are extremely low and the cost of logging comparatively 

 slight, or where there is a local market for low-grade lumber, it is 

 impossible. to operate at a profit the knotty logs from the crowns of 

 many species. Poplar and basswood are among the few trees all 

 logs in which can be considered merchantable irrespective of situation ; 

 but poplar is largely restricted to hollows and lower slopes. While 

 in most operations knotty logs from other less valuable species can 

 be handled when the trees are within a few hundred feet of the 

 logging railroad, similar logs from trees less favorably situated are 

 not merchantable and can not be moved in the next few years and 

 should not be included in appraisal. This condition has necessitated 



