VOLUME TABLES AND TREE FORM 171 



Thirdly, a general volume table given in units of mer- 

 chantable material assumes certain standards of lumber- 

 ing practice. In one region, or on a property carefully 

 handled, stumps may be sawed close to the ground, tops 

 taken up to a small diameter, and every economy em- 

 ployed in cutting to advantage the material between; 

 while in another region, or on another property, a large 

 percentage of the wood of every tree cut down may be 

 left to rot on the ground. Similarly in the mill there is 

 great variety of practice, location, equipment, market re- 

 quirement, and men's capacity all having their effect here, 

 as was explained and illustrated in earlier pages of this 

 work. Then the question may not be at all of saw practice, 

 but of the results of scaling, and here, as every lumberman 

 knows, there is the widest diversity. The scale rules in 

 actual use differ from one another in the values they give 

 to the same log, in some cases by a ridiculous amount, 

 while the practices that have grown up in their application 

 are in some cases entirely artificial. Details need not be 

 entered into here a word to the wise is sufficient but 

 an example will bring the fact home. The Maine log rule, 

 for instance, is believed by many to be the best commercial 

 rule on the market, agreeing closely with the results of 

 good saw practice; yet a Penobscot mill man once testi- 

 fied before a legislative committee that buying 26 million 

 feet of logs by market scale for a season's stock, he sawed 

 30 million feet of long lumber out of it and slabbed heavily 

 for a pulp mill besides. 



Of the volume tables included in this work it may be 

 said that their basis is clearly stated, including the num- 

 ber of trees involved, the standards of cutting and mill or 

 scaling practice assumed, and the responsibility for the 

 observations. They can, therefore, to a large extent be 

 changed over to suit practice of another type. The tables 

 original with this work, those for spruce and white pine, 

 are based on figures taken from a large number of trees. 

 These came from a wide range of country, and the compu- 

 tations show that no clear difference of form was intro- 

 duced by the element of locality. Each tree was computed 

 separately for its volume in the units desired (cubic feet, 



