CRUISING 37 
course of the contour used to express that eleva- 
tion as it extends through the forty which you are © 
mapping. You’ve got to always remember that a 
forty is twenty chains square, and get used to the 
scale of your map. Note how a chain, or five or ten 
chains look, when you draw them to scale. 
‘‘As for the question of estimates, that, like pac- 
ing, is a matter of practice. Your figures will all be 
made on this job from an ocular estimate. You’ve 
got an idea from our sample plot work what timber 
looks like when it runs a thousand, two thousand, or 
whatever number of feet it does run, to the- acre. 
As you go through each forty you’ve got to judge 
the average run for each species in feet board meas- 
ure and set it down in its proper place in your note- 
book. The same holds good as regards the descrip- 
tion, only that’s made out for the whole section in- 
stead of just the forty. 
“‘But don’t expect to learn it all to-day. It will 
be some time before you get the hang of it. It’s 
just like other lines of work. The only way to learn, 
once you know what you’re trying to do, is to get 
out and do it!’’ 
With this he stuck his iron-shod Jacob’s staff in 
the ground, set up his compass atop with the sights 
set due East, and off we started. Our course 
took us almost straight downward for some four 
hundred feet to a wooded draw in the bottom of the 
first canyon. Then up again over a ridge a little 
lower than the main one. Then down again, then 
