1899. 



AMERICAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION. 



59 



one of compiling all definite information 

 regarding timbered area and stand, and 

 supplementing this by examinations in 

 the field. All lumber regions of impor- 

 tance have been cruised, some of them 

 repeatedly, in the interest of lumber com- 

 panies, land grant railroads, etc., and 

 the amount, distribution, species and 

 condition of the timber, as closely as 

 they can be estimated by trained men, 

 are matters of record in the possession 

 of these companies. Abstracts of such 

 records can commonly be obtained at 

 trifling expense under the sole condition 

 that they be not published in such form as 

 to injure the company's business. From 

 railroads, lumber companies, State land 

 offices and other parties in Oregon and 

 Washington, I have obtained cruisings 

 of many thousands of square miles, un- 

 der this condition onty, and these cruis- 

 ings, with the accompanying information 

 regarding the forested areas, furnish the 

 basis for a close estimate of the amount 

 of timber in these States, outside of cer- 

 tain mountain regions in which no exam- 

 inations have yet been made. This 

 estimate is, of course, based on the 

 present lumbering practice in the region, 

 by which only about one-third of the tree 

 comes out of the mill as sawed lumber. 



" The wooded area, which is one of the 

 most important factors in these data, has 

 been mapped in greater or less detail 

 over more than one-third the area of the 

 country. The atlas sheets of the Geo- 

 logical Survey show it in much detail on 

 800,000 square miles scattered widely 

 over our domain. Very little, however, 

 has as yet been published. The Hay- 

 den survey mapped the wooded areas of 

 about 100,000 square miles, the Powell 

 survey two-thirds as much, and the 

 Wheeler survey much more, all in the 

 Rocky Mountain Region, /vll these data 

 are available, and, so far as they extend, 

 furnish one of the two essential items of 

 information. 



"As to the accuracy of the cruisers' es- 

 timates, I have compared many duplicate 

 cruisings with one another, and many 

 cruisings with the actual amount cut. 

 and have reached a conclusion entirely 



at variance with that of Dr. Schenck. 

 When we reflect that millions of dollars' 

 worth of timber land is bought and sold 

 annually, on the basis of these cruisers' 

 reports, we must accord to them some 

 degree of reliability. 



"But assuming that cruisers' reports 

 are not sufficiently accurate, what shall be 

 substituted for them? These men have 

 been trained for years in the sole business 

 of estimating amounts of standing timber, 

 and are the only class of men so trained. 

 If their services cannot be made avail- 

 able the only thing is to give up the idea 

 of measuring our forests." 



"Where the timber has not already 

 been cruised, estimates are being made 

 by agents in the employ of the U. S. 

 Geological Survey, but owing to the ex- 

 pense involved such examinations are by 

 no means as thorough and detailed as 

 cruisings by private companies. They 

 have been made of some 30,000 square 

 miles, all of which is in the Western 

 country in and adjacent to the forest re- 

 serves, and have cost on an average in 

 the neighborhood of $1.00 per squara 

 mile. The cost is not, however, uni- 

 formly distributed, the heavily timbered 

 reserves of Washington costing much 

 more than others in which the timber is 

 light and of little present value or is 

 almost wanting as in the chapparal re- 

 serves of Southern California. These 

 examinations are made by traveling 

 through the country by such routes as to 

 afford near views of the entire region. 

 All valleys are traversed and many moun- 

 tains climbed, and estimates of the 

 average stand are made all along the 

 routes. Of course, the timber is classi- 

 fied by species and its condition as to 

 age, soundness, etc., noted. Maps are 

 used for delineating the extent of burns, 

 logged areas and areas of merchantable 

 timber, its different degrees of density, 

 and the distribution of species. 



" In the examination of the Bitterroot 

 Reserve, an area of some 7,000 square 

 miles, about 1,900 miles were traveled, 

 on horseback and on foot, or about one 

 linear mile to 32/3 square miles. Much 

 of this area is, however, so high and 



