8o Forestry Quarterly 



for the benefit of those outside the profession, that if the forester 

 had his own way, he would discard the product unit in all log 

 measurements, substituting a volume unit with a classification 

 of the logs measured into three or four diameter classes. The 

 purchaser could then saw his logs into boards or deals with thick 

 or thin saws, unroll them as veneer, pulp them, or burn them, 

 and in all cases be equally without ground for complaint as to 

 the measurement. For the present, however, we bow to usage 

 and content ourselves with evolution where we would gladly see 

 revolution. 



The Natural Taper of Logs. From the sides of logs there 

 may be sawn square-edged boards of merchantable dimensions 

 which do not reach to the small end at all and are consequently 

 disregarded by the ordinary log rule which makes no allowance 

 for the natural taper of the log in its scaling score. Naturall}^ 

 the longer the log the greater the advantage to the buyer from 

 this defect. It is, of course, ridiculous to assume that because 

 the log on the saw carriage measures 19 feet in length, the 

 sawyer cutting it will cut only such boards of even width as will 

 be free from wane the full log length. That no modern milling 

 business is conducted on such wasteful lines goes, of course, 

 without saying. 



Heretofore it has been customary on the part of log rule 

 makers to compute the scale for the logs of various diameters for 

 a single log length, finding the scale for logs of other lengths by 

 simple proportion as with true cylinders. This method of rule 

 making discriminates in favor of the seller in the case of all logs 

 of less length than the computed length (usually 12 feet) and in 

 favor of the buyer in the case of the longer lengths. In other 

 words, if the scale for the computed length be correct, all shorter 

 logs will be over-scaled and all longer logs under-scaled. The 

 longer the log and the smaller the diameter, the larger will be 

 the percental error. The absurdity of this method of getting the 

 scaling score for the different log lengths may easily be demon- 

 strated practically by cutting long logs into sections and com- 

 paring the scale given for the entire log with the sum of the 

 scales given by the same rule for the parts after being cut into 

 shorter lengths. For example, 4-inch logs, 19 feet long, scale 

 by the Champlain Rule nine feet board measure. Cut such logs 

 into two sections of 8 and 1 1 feet, respectively, and the parts 

 will be found to give an average scale of four and ten feet board 



