434 Forestry Quarterly. 



chaser must visit the area, and since he certifies that the marking 

 is done satisfactorily, he goes into the matter more thoroughly 

 and gets a definite knowledge of the restrictions which will gov- 

 ern the sale by a full discussion. It has been hard to get the pur- 

 chaser, in many cases, to take sufficient interest in a timber sale 

 transaction, and he is inclined, in general, to sign up a contract 

 without giving it material thought and noting its contents. 



The second important factor in connection with this requirement 

 is that it developes more care on the part of the examining officer 

 as he is inclined to give a proposed sale more thought and time, 

 and will arrive at a better understanding of the existing condi- 

 tions on the sale area than when working under pressure and cov- 

 ering the field work hurriedly with the feeling that the timber 

 to be cut may more closely be considered after the sale is made 

 and when the final marking is done." 



Supervisor Bushnell feared that he would not be willing to 

 abide by his sample marking, after he had occasion to see how 

 some of the area looked after being thinned. 



Supervisor McLaren replied : "We must get away from the idea 

 of going back and changing our marking. We should go into it 

 more carefully in the first place, study timber that has already 

 been marked, and then the probabilities are very small that we 

 will have to make any change after a sale has started." 



Supervisor Cook said : "We have tried out sample marking on 

 two sales on the Arapaho of about 20 acres. The chief value 

 we found was to ourselves. It helped the marking board to get 

 together and discuss things when the purchaser was not present, 

 and we wrangled it out among ourselves." 



Deputy Supervisor Miller said that it was difficult to get the 

 purchaser to look over the sample area ; that they were always 

 satisfied with the marking and that little good resulted from it. 



Supervisor Bushnell objected to marking the whole sale prior 

 to cutting for fear of mistakes, but, on the whole, the sentiment 

 of the meeting was strongly in favor of the practice. 



Marking Boards 



This subject was introduced by Supervisor Philips, who said: 

 "A marking board was organized on the Montezuma Forest soon 

 after the instructions came out last spring. The board is com- 



