MEASUREMENT 147 



for a lump sum and felling it, may find the 

 number to be seriously less than 20,000. Then 

 the seller urges that the indefinite word " about " 

 showed that the number given was only an 

 estimate, and the buyer contends- that the word 

 covers only small differences. If the wood 

 really contained a larger number of trees, the 

 owner has in fact, by his erroneous estimate, 

 made the timber merchant a present of the 

 trees in excess of the estimate. 



After the number of trees in a fir plantation 

 has been fixed by a count or by an estimate, 

 the cubic contents can be ascertained. The 

 simplest method, if measuring has been omitted 

 as too tedious, is to treat separately the trees 

 of exceptional size and the trees which are 

 obviously below the average size. The first 

 class should be counted and measured. The 

 number and cubic contents of the second class 

 can be estimated. When these two classes have 

 been eliminated, it should be comparatively 

 easy to estimate the cubic contents of the average 

 tree in the intermediate class. 



The height of a tree, for the purpose of 

 measurement, is the distance from the ground 

 to the top of the measurable timber. In trees 

 grown clean in woods it is the place where the 



