Forest Mensuration 185 



standard grades. These grades vary in different parts of 

 the country and for different species. A chestnut post in 

 the East must be seven feet long and six inches at the 

 small end ; for a locust post, three inches at the small end 

 is standard. As a rule, the standards are of a little smaller 

 size in the West, or wherever the posts have to be shipped 

 by rail. 



Piling is sold by the lineal foot and graded according to 

 length and diameter. Railroad ties are sold by the piece. 

 They must be cut according to the specifications of the 

 railroad to which they are to be sold. As these specifica- 

 tions vary from time to time and for the different roads, 

 a copy of them should always be secured just before the 

 ties are cut. A different grading of the ties according to 

 width of face and depth may make a great difference in 

 the total returns. It must be remembered that a tie 

 contains about thirty board feet and it should be carefully 

 considered whether a tree can be most economically used 

 for ties, posts, piling, poles or saw logs. It is rarely ad- 

 visable to cut all the trees into the same product, and each 

 part of the tree should be devoted to the product that will 

 bring the best returns. It seldom is profitable to split 

 a large tree into posts or ties unless it is a species especially 

 suited to that form of product. 



Telephone poles are graded according to length and diam- 

 eter at small end. Logs usually are measured by the 

 same standard unit as lumber, the board foot. For 

 example, a log is said to contain 200 ft. B.M., when the 

 lumber sawed from it will scale 200 ft. B.M. For the pur- 

 pose of measuring logs, the contents of logs of all lengths, 

 diameters and species have been worked out and tabu- 



