GRADED VOLUME TABLES FOR VERMONT 

 HARDWOODS. 



By Irving W. Bailby, Harvard University, 



and 



Philip C. He.\ld, Harvard University. 



Approximately one half of the data upon which the following 

 volume tables are based was secured by senior students of the 

 Harvard Forest School in April and May, 1913. During this 

 period the members of the class were engaged in mapping and 

 estimatins^ the timber upon tht township of Somerset in south- 

 ern \^ermont. The primary object in collecting material for 

 graded tables was to focus the attention of the students upon 

 local methods of logging, milling, and grading hardwoods, and 

 to afford essential experience in studying the effects of such 

 fluctuating factors as forest type, tree form, defect, method of 

 utilization, etc., upon the graded yield of logs and trees. Al- 

 though each student spent but three out of eight weeks in this 

 type of preliminary training before undertaking the final task 

 of estimating standing timber, much instructive and reliable in- 

 formation was obtained. The facility with which material for 

 graded volume tables could be collected made it seem advisable 

 to secure sufficient additional data to justify the construction of 

 tables for beech, hard maple, and yellow birch. With this plan 

 in view one of the writers and Mr. George W. Kimball, M. F., 

 spent the month of June, 1913, in the locality previously visited. 



Before passing to a detailed description of the results of this 

 investigation it will be well perhaps to discuss briefly certain 

 points that are significant in the construction and use of hard- 

 wood log scales and volume tables. 



An elementary principle but one which is not always sufficiently 

 emphasized is the theorem that no greater degree of refinement 

 should be used in any detail of a problem than is justified by the 

 homogeneity of the material and the accuracy of methods used 

 in other phases of the problem. Of course the accuracy of these 

 details should be properly correlated with the accuracy desired in 



