i^etI)od5 of Estimating and T^easaring 

 standing Timber. 



BY A. KXECHTEL, B. S., F. E.- 



?\etl)ods of Estimating. 



GENERAL METHOD. 



STANDING timber was formerh' estimated in this country by men who trav- 

 eled through the woods and from the general impression thus received 

 formed a judgment as to the quantity of merchantable material. Frequently 

 their course was no more definite than that of a cruiser at sea, and perhaps this 

 is the reason why in Michigan and Wisconsin they received the designation of 

 " timber cruisers." The general impression obtained by this method was often a 

 very vague idea upon which to base an estimate. But generally the cruiser was 

 a man of large experience with timber. He had been through the mill : he had 

 been lumber piler, jack logger, tail sawyer and head sawyer, and could judge pretty 

 closely of the quantity of lumber in logs of a given diameter. He had been in the 

 woods, had felled the trees, had cut them into logs, had skidded and scaled and 

 hauled the logs to the mill, and he knew how many average logs it took to make a 

 thousand feet of lumber. He had taken contracts for the mill, and had compared 

 his estimate of the lumber on certain tracts with the scale bills and with the actual 

 cut in the mill. He had learned to judge the timber on given areas by the cut from 

 other areas of similar timber with which he had had experience. Thus he had 

 gained proficiency in his work and had become recognized as a man whose judg- 

 ment of timber could be relied upon. 



His was a wholesale method suitable for his time, when timber was very 

 abundant and sold at a low price. To be sure the disadvantages under which he 

 worked were great. There was the density of timber, never the same on different 



* Forester in the employ of the New York Forest, Fish and Game Commission. Some of the para- 

 graphs in this article appeared in similar form in a contribution furnished by the author to Rod and 



Gun in Canada, the official organ of the Canadian Forestry Association. 



67 



