Timber Sale Contract Clauses. 153 



4. No timber will be cut except from the area specified by a Forest 

 officer. No live timber will be cut except that marked or otherwise desig- 

 nated by a Forest officer. 



It is essential that all sales boundaries be clearly marked, par- 

 ticularly when the cutting is up one side of a watershed so as to 

 remove the good timber with that which is less accessible. Usually 

 all trees to be cut are blazed on the lower part of the bole or on a 

 projecting root and the blaze stamped "U. S." Where there is 

 thick bark it may be better and cheaper to merely blaze and stamp 

 the bark ; provided this stamp will show when the final inspection 

 is made. Where blazing the wood and stamping occurs, a year or 

 so before cutting (rarely advisable to mark this long in advance) 

 the mark is often covered by pitch and it is difficult to determine 

 whether it is an official blaze. The U. S. print should show evenly 

 and clearly at the time of stamping. 



Where a few seed trees per acre are retained, it is usually 

 cheaper to blaze and stamp the trees which are to be left; in the 

 case of clear cutting it is sufficient to designate the boundaries of 

 the area to be clear cut. 



5. All merchantable timber used in buildings, skidways, bridges, con- 

 struction of roads, or other improvements will be paid for at the price 

 herein specified. 



The use of unmerchantable timber, such as aspen, should be 

 encouraged as a general conservation measure. Ordinarily a 

 species too inferior for lumber is suitable for temporary construc- 

 tion. It is customary to allow camps, donkey engines and loco- 

 motives (oil is usually insisted upon as fuel in case there is danger 

 from fire), to burn dead fuel wood free. The writer knows of at 

 least one case where a charge was made for unmerchantable dead 

 "sawtimber" used for fuel in a mill, notwithstanding the fact that 

 the dead logs were a fire menace in the woods. It was considered 

 dangerous and a poor policy to give a large quantity of mill fuel 

 to a corporation. 



6. All cutting will be done with a saw when possible. 



In the northwest where the timber is large, this clause may 

 sound ridiculous, but in smaller timber there is often a desire to 

 chop down trees ; this if course wastes valuable lumber and should 



