24 A MANUAL FOB NORTHERN WOODSMEN 



corner to leave there his initials, or some mark peculiar to 

 him which will identify it as his work, together with the 

 year in which the survey was made. The same thing may 

 be done by a succeeding surveyor. 



Practice in all these matters, however, varies a good deal 

 in different parts of the country. The methods presciibed 

 for use in the United States land surveys will be found on 

 later pages of this volume. 



Lines. A property line in the forests of Germany is kept 

 cleared out several yards wide and blocks of cut stone are 

 deeply set along it near enough together so that one may be 

 seen from another. In addition, the range of a transit line 

 is inscribed upon them. This renders the property limit 

 prominent and durable, and, further, defines it to within a 

 quarter of an inch. 



Such ideal marking is seldom to be looked for in this 

 country, but the ends to be aimed at, which in the fore- 

 going case were attained, should be in the mind of every 

 man who has to do with forest boundaries. A property 

 owner's interests are first, to have his bounds prominent so 

 that he and other parties may know where they are and so 

 that there will be no excuse for trespass ; second, to have 

 them durably marked for obvious reasons ; and third, to 

 have them so closely defined that all possible causes of 

 dispute may be avoided. 



Stone walls, ditches, and fences are the common bounds 

 of property in settled and half-settled countries, and each 

 of these methods of delimitation has its grade of efficiency, 

 considered from the above points of view. In large forest 

 areas blazed trees are the means almost universally em- 

 ployed for the purpose. That system has been reasonably 

 satisfactory in the past. It would have been more so had 

 care and system always been employed in the marking and 

 more attention paid to renewal. 



The directions for marking lines in timbered lands, as 

 contained in the " Manual of Instructions for the Survey 

 of the Public Lands of the United States," are as follows : 



All lines on which are to be established the legal corner boun- 

 daries will be marked after this method, viz. : Those trees which 

 may be intersected by the line will have two chops or notches cut 



