136 FIRST BOOK OF FORESTRY 



of insects, for during winter these pests are inactive, practi- 

 cally dormant, and thus they do not injure the timber 

 which is cut, nor does the felling lead to an increased 

 multiplication of these ever-present enemies of the forest. 

 Besides this, there is little work on the farm during winter, 

 and thus help is more easily procured. To this must be 

 added, in colder districts at least, the advantages gained 

 by a good fall of snow, which makes it so much easier to 

 drag and haul timber. 



Firewood. For this it is customary to use only such 

 pieces as will make nothing better. For ordinary house 

 use, all tops, the trunks of short, crooked, or otherwise 

 unsalable trees, and in many cases even stumps, are used. 

 If the firewood is to be sold, it is better to grade it so 

 that the better and poorer kinds are not mixed, as is so 

 often done ; for a few sticks of poor wood give the whole 

 pile a bad appearance and thus lower its price. Usually 

 firewood is cut in four-foot lengths and stacked in piles 

 four feet high and eight feet long, such a pile being one 

 cord. A cord is a legal measure, and as such requires that 

 the pile be four feet wide, or in ordinary cases that the pieces 

 be cut four feet long. Where people buy stove wood sixteen 

 to eighteen inches long, the cord is frequently meant to be 

 a pile of this short wood four feet high and eight feet long, 

 and thus is really but about a third of a cord. 



In all cases there is much air space between the pieces 

 of such a pile, and though the pile contains one hundred 



