TIMBER CRUISING IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST 



BY 1IKKMW II. CIIM'MW 



rIE enormous size and great value of individual trees in the coast 

 forests of Washington and Oregon have led to the adoption of 

 careful, detailed methods of timber cruising. The old-time 

 cruiser, who produced his results by methods as mysterious as those of 

 the professor of legerdemain, is giving place to the man who has a 

 definite system and does not care who knows it. Timber cruising does 

 not differ from other kinds of inventories or stock taking, except that 

 it is immensely more difficult to obtain accurate and consistent results 

 except at considerable cost. 



The fundamental requirement in large and valuable timber is a 

 count which will show the exact number of trees of each species on a 

 " forty." Cruisers who attempt to estimate timber of this character by 

 any shorter method cannot hope to 

 attain even reasonable accuracy. 

 An example of modern methods 

 is a report sent to the writer by 

 the St. Paul and Tacoma Lumber 

 Company, prepared by their tim- 

 ber inspector, Charles A. Billings, 

 of Olympia, Washington, covering 

 a section or square mile of heavy 

 timber near Everett, Washing- 

 ton. The method employed by 



This species U 

 270 



RED CEDAR 

 the source of nearly all the famous red cedar shingles 



irly 

 shipped from the West Coast. 



YOUNG DOUGLAS FIR 

 This timber is mature for cutting and the stand 

 has not yet begun to deteriorate or open up. 

 Cruiser Charles A. Billings in the foreground. 



Mr. Billings was to divide each 



forty-acre tract into sixteen squares 



of 2*^ acres each. The center of 



each square plot was blazed with 



a cross and the plot numbered. ( 



Then the cruiser counted every 



tree of merchantable size by the 



following classes: Douglas Fir, 



Young Douglas Fir, Red Cedar, 



Spruce, Hemlock, Cedar telephone 



poles, slow growth fir piling. For 



each of these classes, the average 



diameter was arrived at, and the average merchantable length to 



nearest a 16-foot log. From these dimensions the contents of an 



average tree of this size was computed and the total stand determined 



in board feet by the Scribner Log Rule. These data were completed 



separately by species on each 2>-acre plot, with sixteen plots per 



forty, and sixteen forties in a section. This requires separate estimates 



on 256 plots to cover a single section, or over 9000 plots on a township 



of 36 sections. 



The cruiser also estimates the per cent of the stand which will 

 yield logs of three grades, respectively: No. 1, "merchantable," and 

 No. 2, logging conditions are noted, a sketch map is drawn showing 



SEMI-MATURE DOUGLAS FIR 



This timber is typical of that found in the Puget 



Sound Region of Washington. 



