PREFACE 



This text is intended as a thorough discussion of the measurement 

 of the volume of felled timber, in the form of logs or other products; 

 of the measurement of the volume of standing timber; and of the 

 growth of trees, stands of timber and forests. It is designed for the 

 information of students of forestry, owners or purchasers of timber- 

 lands, and timber operators. The subject matter so treated is funda- 

 mental to the purchase or exchange of forest property or of timber 

 stumpage, the valuation of damages, the planning of logging operations, 

 and the management of forest lands for the production of timber by 

 growth. 



The publication is intended as the successor of Graves' Forest Men- 

 suration, and was undertaken at the request of the author, H. S. Graves, 

 whose original text, Forest Mensuration, appearing in 1906, set a stand- 

 ard for text-books in forestry and has been of inestimable value to 

 foresters and timberland owners in America. The present text is not a 

 revision of the former publication, but an entirely new presentation, 

 both as to arrangement, methods of treatment and much of the subject 

 matter. The author has in some instances quoted or borrowed portions 

 of the former text and is indebted to it for many of the more fundamental 

 conceptions and descriptions of processes used in Forest Mensuration. 



It is the purpose of Part I to bring out the relations of the cubic 

 contents of logs, and their measurement, to the contents as expressed in 

 terms of .products, and to encourage the substitution of sound units of 

 measure and methods of measurement for defective standards and 

 methods as far as possible. 



The application of these standards to the measurement of standing 

 timber is the subject of Part II. This part presents a complete analysis 

 of the art of timber estimating as practiced in every timber region of the 

 United States, the methods employed by skilled timber cruisers, the 

 principles upon which these methods are based, the relative accuracy 

 of the various systems used, the factors and averages which enter into 

 the use of these methods, and the application of these principles and 

 factors in practical work and in the training of men for timber cruising. 



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