CRUISING 35 



We had taken full cruiser's equipment : 'A Forest 

 Service standard compass, "Jacob's staff," aneroid 

 barometer and notebook; and our first move upon 

 reaching our station was to set the aneroids at the 

 elevation recorded there, ninety-two hundred feet. 

 Then, as we rested a few moments before starting 

 out, we discussed the details of the run. 



I had learned by now something of the general 

 character and methods of our work. I knew that 

 reconnaissance was a sort of forest stock-taking a 

 gathering and tabulation of the resources of the 

 forest. The timber estimates of the cruisers, the 

 topographical maps, and the silvical data compiled 

 by our party, for example, would serve as a guide 

 to the Supervisor in planning and carrying through 

 future timber sales in the Black Eange. And when 

 all the timberland on the Gila had been cruised, the 

 mass of information collected would form the basis 

 for a Forest Working Plan outlining the policy of 

 management the methods of administration advis- 

 able in the light of the facts reconnaissance might 

 discover and submit. 



This much I knew. The process of collecting the 

 necessary data the actual work of cruising was 

 Greek to me. And now my initiation in that phase 

 of the subject began. 



Frazer handed me a little oilcloth-bound book 

 which just fitted in the hip pocket of my overalls. 



"Here's your field notebook," he said. 



On every lefthand page there was printed a sec- 



