470 DISPOSAL AND SALE OF WOOD. 



measurements ; especially should all timber be measured 

 without its bark, and old country measures should give place 

 to the metric system. Only absolute correctness in measuring 

 leads to genuine trade. It frequently happens that in slack 

 times for trade, logs are measured below their actual dimen- 

 sions, or timber classified below its proper rating, with the 

 object of finding ready purchasers at prices which appear to be 

 on a par with, or even to exceed, the fixed tariff. Such 

 manipulation must be abnegated entirely, for it impairs the 

 confidence traders should feel in the honesty and accuracy of 

 forest officials, hinders the compilation of a correct tariff, and 

 serves only to blind superior officials. 



3. The Produce to be Sold. 



Every felling-area yields good as well as inferior wood. 

 The forester should attend most carefully to the conver- 

 sion and assortment of good material, for this affects greatly 

 the financial returns of his forest ; he should endeavour also 

 as much as possible to avoid overstocking the market with 

 inferior wood. This should be attended to especially when 

 trade is slack, or the sale of good material will be prejudiced. 



When the market is overstocked, it is better to leave stump- 

 wood and inferior firewood in the forest than allow it to reduce 

 the price of the better class of firewood ; also, where poles 

 from thinnings are in a similar condition, it is better not to 

 classify them as timber. In slack times it is a matter of 

 ordinary prudence to reduce to the utmost the cost of con- 

 version of inferior material. Purchasers of such stuff will 

 convert it more cheaply and more in accordance with their 

 own wishes than forest officials. 



In converting his trees, the forester always should be guided 

 by the wishes of purchasers, as far as general rules will allow. 

 Whenever, as is often the case, there is a generally expressed 

 desire for any change in the details of the wood-assortments, the 

 forester should be ready to meet the purchasers' wishes ; they 

 are usually the expression of the market requirements. When, 

 for instance, there is a desire that stacked wood should be more 

 Hum a yard long, or that butts should be longer than is usiml 



