SELLING, VALUING, AND MEASURING TIMBER 165 



off less than long and tapering boles, but with ordinary 

 plantation trees a drop of 3 inches on a bole of 20 feet 

 in length is usually sufficient, allowing an extra inch for 

 every additional 10 feet of bole. With cylindrical boles, 

 such as those of mature trees, which have been drawn up 

 closely in their youth and have laid on wood fairly 

 evenly for some years, 3 or 4 inches is usually the maxi- 

 mum that should be allowed, and may even be as low as 

 2 inches in some cases ; while, on the other hand, large park 

 or hedgerow timber, with buttress-like projections reaching 

 well up the bole, should have a wide margin allowed for the 

 drop in girth sometimes as much as 12 inches. It is 

 apparent that a slight error in judgment, in the case of a 

 large quarter girth, may make a considerable error in the 

 cubic contents. For instance, the difference in the cubic 

 contents of a tree 40 feet long by 24 inches quarter girth, 

 and another of the same length but 25 inches quarter girth, 

 is 20 feet. Yet such an error may be easily made in 

 allowing for the drop or in estimating the quarter girth with 

 the eye, and the boast that a tree can be ocularly measured 

 to a foot is obviously absurd. 



If the measurer of big standing timber can get within 

 10 per cent, of its true contents, after allowance has been 

 made for defects and damage in falling, etc., he does not do 

 badly, although many may not admit their liability to such 

 an error. Of course, one frequent source of disparity between 

 the estimated contents of standing and the actual contents 

 of felled timber lies in the absence of any clear definition 

 of measurable timber. It may be said that nothing is 

 timber with a diameter less than 6 inches. But this rule 

 could hardly be applied to small larch or ash, with which 

 perhaps half the entire length of the bole falls below this 

 size. Large and rough tops, on the other hand, often have 

 a considerable diameter, and yet are of no value as timber, 

 while in another case smaller but cleaner tops may possess 

 almost as much value as the bole. The prevailing practice 

 is to ignore tops altogether in valuing standing timber, but 

 in the case of large trees this always seems to us to allow 

 the buyer too wide a margin for the cost of felling. The 

 tops of a large oak, ash, or elm often contain from 50 



