420 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



Another point to be considered in the working plan is the best means of eliminat- 

 ing all unnecessary waste. High stumps, the failure to run the logs well up into the 

 tops, lodged trees left in the woods, and any other form of slovenliness, are as foreign 

 to good forestry as to clean lumbering. 



In framing the rules to govern logging, the forester has to consider not only the 

 treatment which the forest requires from a purely silvicultural standpoint, but also the 

 bearing which the application of silvicultural measures will have upon the profit to be 

 made from lumbering. To arrange his cuttings solely in accordance with the silvi- 

 cultural requirements of the forest would in almost every case mean outlay instead of 

 income. It is here that his technical knowledge and his business ability are most 

 severely tested. 



As a working plan contains directions for the lumbering of a forest with a view to 

 the future production of crops of timber, it must, in order to justify these directions, 

 state how large the future crops are likely to be in a given number of years, after the 

 area has first been logged over, in addition to furnishing estimates of the present 

 merchantable stand. .Since upon these estimates are based largely the rules of the 

 working plan as to the amount of lumbering to be done now, how heavy it shall be, 

 and how soon the same area is to be cut over a second time, and the handling of the 

 forest generally, they must reach the highest degree of accuracy practicable. 



The methods employed by the Division of Forestry in obtaining an estimate of the 

 stand consist of actual measurements of the diameter of all trees, with a record of their 

 number, quality, and kind, upon a given portion of the area to be taken in hand. 

 Strips, usually one chain wide and ten chains long to the acre, are run upon compass 

 courses through the forest. All trees within this strip are calipered and recorded 

 upon a separate blank which is kept for each acre run. In addition, notes are made 

 of the merchantable quality of the timber and the silvicultural condition of the stand. 

 These strips are distributed in such a way as to pass through all types and qualities of 

 the forest. They are then worked up for general average and are used as factors in 

 calculating the total amount of standing timber. In order to work up the present 

 merchantable stand into cords or board feet, tables are employed which have been 

 constructed from actual scale of felled trees of different kinds, and give their contents 

 on a basis of diameter at four feet from the ground, the height at which the trees in 

 the strips have been calipered. In several cases there has been opportunity to com- 

 pare the results, obtained by these "valuation surveys," with the actual cut taken 

 afterwards from the area for which they furnished an estimate. The comparison has 

 shown for them a degree of accuracy not only quite sufficient for the purpose in hand, 

 but which bids fair to prove the entering wedge in inducing lumbermen to abandon 

 cruisers' estimates for a similar system of measurement. 



