182 f^ELLING AND (.OXVERSTOX. 



workman is employed : as a rule, daily wages arc exceptional 

 in woodcutters' work, and arc given only when the amount of 

 trouble taken by tlic workman is out of all proportion to the 

 amount of work done, as in forest plantations, where if the work 

 be paid by the number of plants, the latter will be planted 

 carelessly, without proper attention to their roots. 



A piece of work done, or unity of work, may be measured in 

 various ways, either by its weight, volume, or roughly stacked 

 volume ; or by the chief determining measure of the work, as for 

 instance, the length and mid-diameter of a log, the yard of ditch- 

 ing, the hundred planting-holes of definite size, the single rail- 

 way-sleeper, &c. Weight is not much used in forestry as a unit 

 of work, but the common unit for timber is the cubic foot, or 

 load of 40 cubic feet, for hardwood, and of 50 cubic feet for 

 softwood, both corresponding roughly to a ton. Stacked tire- 

 wood is measured by the cord (G feet X (J feet X G feet) of 21 (> 

 stacked cubic feet, and faggots by the hundred. 



Timber may be measured by its dimensions, and the diameter 

 of different pieces may be used as a unit. Such a measurement of 

 his work is more easily appreciated and calculated by the wood- 

 cutter than when the cubic foot is the unit for measurement, and 

 it is also a fairer measure of the work done than the latter. It has 

 not yet been decided whether it is more profitable, or not, for the 

 forest owner to measure the work for payment by the diameter of 

 the piece, or by the cubic foot, but experiments made in Saxony 

 are in favour of the former system, which is much the commoner 

 of the two. Wherever logs are sold by their length and the 

 diameter of their smaller end, these latter should also be taken 

 as the units of work. 



Whatever unit of work may be chosen, the unit of pay must 

 now be calculated, and this naturally varies more or less with the 

 time and locality, and depends chiefiy on : — the supply of labour ; 

 the extent and variability of the demands for labour in a district 

 for manufactures, agriculture, public works, traffic, &c. ; the 

 immediate cost of the necessaries of life ; the value of money 

 measured in commodities; the economic condition of the people; 

 the inclination of workmen for forest work, tic. Different 

 measures may be taken to rectify the greater or less variability 

 of the circumstances which alle-jt wages. Either a pern.anent 



