2l8 FOREST VALUATION 



215. Estimation of Standing Timber. The estimation of 

 standing timber presents one of the most difficult problems in 

 the business of lumbering. This might not be true were there 

 no limits to the cost which can be incurred in making such an 

 estimate. But it is quite possible for a careful detailed measure- 

 ment of the timber on a tract to cost over $1.00 per acre. It is 

 a recognized precept in business that the cost of stock taking 

 must be kept as low as possible, for the work adds nothing to 

 the value or the profits of the business, and is necessary merely 

 as a basis upon which to plan actual operations. 



Methods of timber estimating are determined by the relation 

 between the cost of doing the work and the value of the timber. 

 The amount of care and expense justified increases with rising 

 stumpage values. Timber is always estimated in terms of the 

 product which has the highest market value, or is most readily 

 saleable. When pulpwood is used, the cord is the customary 

 unit. But should the stand be situated in a region where cord- 

 wood is used only for fuel, the number of ties or poles and the 

 contents in lumber of suitable trees would be first estimated 

 and only the residue expressed in cords. By far the greater 

 quantity of timber is estimated in terms of board feet, since 

 it is used in this form. 



216. Log Rules. The measurement of standing trees for 

 board foot contents is beset by the fundamental difficulty that 

 no commonly accepted standard of measurement has been or is 

 likely to be adopted in this country which will properly express 

 this contents. Innumerable log rules are in use, of which a 

 few are now widely recognized. But these rules are very de- 

 fective, seldom giving a sufficiently large contents for logs (179). 

 In spite of this fact, it will seldom be possible to adopt the actual 

 sawed output as a basis for timber estimating, as long as logging 

 contracts and other woods operations, such as felling, are based 

 on the old standards as expressed by the log rules in common 

 local use. Any great increase in the measured volumes of the 

 logs would require reduction in the scale of payment or result 

 in loss of profits by the millman. The only safeguard is a 

 knowledge of the amount of overrun usually obtained with the 



