202 The Farm Woodlot 



In a small woodlot, all the logs of merchantable size 

 should be estimated and recorded on the tally sheet. 

 This may easily be accomplished by one man. He needs 

 no other equipment than a tally board and something 

 with which he can mark the trees he has estimated to 

 prevent taking them twice. This may be a hatchet for 

 light blazing; a scratcher for scratching the bark or a 

 piece of chalk, probably the last would be the easiest 

 to handle. 



Starting at one corner of the woodlot, he runs a strip 

 along one of the boundaries, estimating the number, 

 length and diameter of the logs in each tree and recording 

 them under the proper species on his tally sheet. He must 

 remember to allow for a reasonable stump and avoid the 

 bad crooks. He marks each tree, as he estimates it, 

 where the mark will be most conspicuous on his return 

 trip. When the end of the woodlot is reached, he faces 

 about and runs another similar strip next to the first. 

 In this way, he estimates the logs in every tree in the 

 woodlot and his tally sheet contains the data needed to 

 calculate his total crop of merchantable logs. 



Few woodlots are too large to permit of this method, 

 but when they are, one of the following methods may be 

 used. The problem is to estimate a certain definite 

 percentage of the trees. This may be done in a number of 

 ways. If the area of the tract is known, the number of 

 acres necessary to make up the required percentage can 

 be calculated and estimated. The acres estimated should 

 be scattered evenly over the tract, so that a good average 

 is secured and not bunched up in any one place. There 

 are dozens of mathematical methods for distributing these 



