THE PROBLEM OF MAKING VOLUME TABLES 585 



contents, there can never be a universal volume table which can be 

 applied without modification to different species." He thinks that the 

 nearest approach that we can make to a universal table is to have a 

 universal base table of frustums for each diameter and height class 

 and for various top diameters, i. c, for various tapers. From this 

 base table, by systematic measurement of ten or more trees, form 

 factors for each diameter class can be secured, with which the table 

 for each species can be made very easily. 



Braniff used, in cruising on the Crater Forest in 1911, a sort of 

 universal table invented because of the lack of good tables for the 

 several secondary species and to save office work. His method was to 

 cruise and tally the trees by species, diameter and height in the usual 

 fashion and then work up each species with the standard western 

 yellow pine volume table. Correction factors, or form factors, were 

 then secured from the measurement of a few trees and by comparison 

 of existing volume tables, which showed the relation between the 

 volume of each species and of western yellow pine for certain diameter 

 classes. For example, white fir 14 to 24 inches in diameter might have 

 a factor of .89, Douglas fir of 1.2;5 for small trees and .7 for the 

 larger. These factors were then applied to the volumes computed by 

 the western yellow pine or "universal" table. This method is essen- 

 tially analogous to Bruce's suggestion for the use of a universal table 

 outlined above. It saves a little in office computation, but not much. 

 It is really only a makeshift in the absence of good tables for all 

 species. It has great possibilities, however, if our cruising practice 

 were somewhat modified. Braniff has proposed such a modification. 

 I should like to speak of it briefly, though it is a detail of cruising 

 technique rather than of volume table preparation, for if adopted it 

 would create a demand for a very dift'erent sort of table from what 

 we are using now. His plan'' is for the cruisers to use a volume stick 

 on the strip surveys (instead of a Biltmore stick, and based on the 

 same idea), this stick to have six sides, on one of which inches is 

 engraved and on each of the other five the volume in board feet by 

 the universal table for eacli merchantal)le height class. The cruiser 

 would then read from his stick direct the "universal" volume of each 

 tree and so tally it by species. Braniff suggests, however, that the 

 trees be tallied by diameter groups also. All that would be needed in 

 the office is to add up the separate volume tallies and apply to the 



^American Lumberman, February 29, 1912, p. 82. 



