371 



PREFACE 



DEAR READERS: 



In the following pages an attempt is made to treat "Forest Men- 

 suration" from a scientific-mathematical standpoint as well as from 

 the view point of practical application. 



Naturally, pamphlets of as restricted a character as this treatise on 

 forest mensuration address themselves to a very restricted circle of 

 readers; and the expense of printing is never covered by the returns from 

 sales. 



Thus it becomes necessary, in order to reduce the expense of pub- 

 lication, to omit all, or practically all, lengthy explanation of a mathe- 

 matical nature which the teacher at a forest school can easily supply 

 in the course of his lectures. 

 The present Biltmore pamphlet on Forest Mensuration is intended, 



fr- above all, to assist the students enlisted at the Biltmore School. It con- 



* tains the teacher's dictation which the students, in former years, were 



>^ compelled to take down in long or shorthand, to the annoyance of both 

 teacher and students. 



:_! It cannot be expected that a present-day lumberman will take a direct 

 and personal interest in any of the following paragraphs. Still, in con- 

 servative forestry, in destructive forestry, and in any other business en- 



Xj! terprise, the truism is worth remembering that "knowledge is the best 



in of assets." 



> Knowledge certainly forms the only unalienable factor of production. 



* With the advent of high stumpage prices, the owner of woodland will 

 be inclined to consider, under many circumstances, the advisability of 

 forest-husbandry an idea which was as preposterous in past decades of 



rf superabundance of timber as the raising of beef cattle, some sixty years 

 ' ago, in the prairies then abounding in buffalo. 



O Financially considered, a proper outcome of forest-husbandry is and 



2 must be based on a proper application of the theories and principles 



irj involved in forest mensuration. 



I shall be deeply grateful to a kind reader who, discovering mistakes 



_j or incongruities in the following paragraphs, will take the trouble of 

 sending me a timely hint. Most truly, 



C. A. SCHENCK, 



Director Biltmore Forest School, and 



Forester to the Biltmore Estate. 

 August I, 1905. 



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