REVIEWS. 



The Determination of Timber Values, by Edward A. Branifj. 

 Reprinted from U. S. Department of Agriculture Yearbook 

 for 1904. 



This little pamphlet will be of inestimable service to all 

 lumbermen in estimating the value of growing timber, as by 

 means of the tables furnished by Mr. Braniff little difficulty will 

 be experienced in determining what trees can be cut most profit- 

 ably. Until recently there was scant data upon which to base 

 such estimates, but Mr. Braniff's experiments were made with 

 such care that his estimates may be depended upon to be as 

 nearly correct as they could be made. They were made, not with 

 single logs, but with whole trees, and the total number from 

 which the output was traced was considerable. The logs com- 

 posing each tree were sawn one after the other and the lumber 

 graded and tallied as it came from the saws. It was found that 

 there was a very considerable difference in the value per thousand 

 feet of lumber taken from large and small trees. For example, 

 yellow birch thirteen inches in diameter at the stump averages 

 $9.32 per 1,000 feet for all the wood used, while from trees thirty- 

 one inches in diameter the average was $17.75, a difference of 

 $8.43 per 1,000 feet, accounted for partly by the presence in the 

 high diameters of the high-priced grade "firsts and seconds red." 

 Sugar Maple was found to increase in value from $9.7 5 for a 13- 

 inch tree to $13.58 for a 28-inch tree, and beech from $8.29 for a 

 13-inch tree to $9.68 for those of twenty-four inches. The 

 practical value of these experiments lies chiefly in the fact that 

 they make clear the unprofitableness of cutting small trees, and 

 except when the land must be cleared it is plain that lumbermen 

 are working directly against their own interests when they 

 permit indiscriminate cutting. 



Summary Report of the Geological Survey of Canada for 1905. 



The explorers and geologists sent out by the Geological 

 Survey have exceptional opportunities for noting the distribu- 

 tion of trees and the extent and probable value of forests in little 

 known regions, but the report just issued contains fewer notes 

 of this kind than usual as few of the members of the Geological 

 Survey worked last season in districts in which there are valuable 

 forests. 



