40 CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



IS IT PRACTICAL ? 



To those who say it is not practical to prepare a reliable topographic map 

 by the methods just described, or that the cost is prohibitive, I would reply that in 

 the autumn of 1896 Mr. Austin Gary, a practical timber cruiser, a graduate of the 

 Yale Forest School, and now Professor of Forestry at Harvard University, pre- 

 pared such a map of Township 3, Range 5, in Franklin County, Maine. This 

 township is six miles square, heavily timbered with spruce, and was gone over 

 from four camps in a little over six weeks' time. Two weeks were then required 

 in the office to work up the data collected in the field and prepare the map, which 

 proved so valuable to the firm of Hollingsworth & Whitney, of Waterville, Maine, 

 that other concerns were led to desire similar maps. The result was that, during 

 the next few years, Mr. Gary's services were greatly in demand for work of this 

 nature, ^and that he has prepared maps of this description for 200,000 acres of 

 timber lands. Most of them are drawn to a scale of four inches to the mile and 

 have fifty foot contour lines representing the topography. As some woodsmen 

 cannot easily read such maps, it was found advisable, in a few cases, to prepare 

 cardboard or veneer models, which represent the land in miniature and show its 

 main features just as clearly as if the men were on the land. 



Taking the stumpage price of spruce at $3.50 per M, and assuming that a 

 township, containing thirty-six square miles, will average 5,000 board feet per acre, 

 it is seen that we are dealing with a property worth $403,200 in its present wild 

 state, and easily worth $500,000 by the time it can be got under proper management. 

 From this it will be seen that an outlay of less than $2.00 for every $1,000 worth 

 of property, or 4c. per acre, will secure to the owners a first-class map of the topo- 

 graphy of the entire township which will enable them to sit in the office and discuss 

 plans or let*contracts with the same clearness as to details as if they were on the 

 land. 



THE ESTIMATION OF TIMBER. 







Where the supply of timber is both plentiful and cheap, timber cruisers or 

 "timber lookers" are generally employed to make ocular estimates of the contents 

 of stands, but where it commands a better price it is now customary to constantly 

 check the judgment of the estimators by means of measurements on sample areas 

 properly distributed over the whole tract. 



At the outset it should be clearly understood that ability to estimate the 

 merchantable contents of a stand of timber can be acquired only through practice 

 and experience in the woods. The estimator must be able to recognize the external 

 signs of defect and have some knowledge of the loss due to hidden imperfections. 

 He should also know the local conditions of lumbering and be able to judge the cost 

 of logging and milling before he can place a value on the stumpage. All this infor- 

 mation is a matter of field training and cannot be learned in a purely theoretical 

 manner. It is a matter of good judgment and experience and not a matter of 

 mere method. This does not mean that there should not be any method in the 

 procedure of making such an estimate, nor does it mean that one method is just as 

 good as another. It does mean, however, that an estimator who is familiar with 

 several methods of cruising is in a position to apply the method most suitable for 

 the particular locality in which he happens to be working, and that his returns will 

 be much more reliable than mere guesses. 



In the case of ocular estimates, each cruiser does his work in his own way. 



