FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 265 



enough of these short logs to supply the call for boards of that length. On some 

 jobs fourteens were cut to save timber; but boards of this length were somewhat 

 unsalable. 



In the Adirondack forests all logs, with scarcely an exception, are cut thirteen 

 feet long. The reason for adopting this odd length is not known now. For nearly 

 a hundred years the lumbermen of Northern New York have cut thirteen-foot logs 

 sawed thirteen-foot boards, and sold thirteen-foot lumber in the Albany and New 

 York markets, although logs everywhere else in the United States are cut into 

 lengths of sixteen feet or some other even number. Fifty years ago the ten-inch 

 boards, thirteen feet long, from the Glens Falls mills, were known in these markets 

 as " tally-boards," and were sold by count instead of measure. It may be that, 

 originally, the liberal-minded lumbermen of that region considered their logs as 

 twelve feet long with an extra foot added for good measure. However this may 

 be, the boards are now measured at their full contents. 



lyog Rales. 



Throughout the entire State, with the exception of the Adirondack country, the 

 lumbermen bought or sold logs by one of two rules — Doyle's or Scribner's. Many 

 years ago, prior to 1850, Edward Doyle and J. M. Scribner each published an original 

 tabulation of figures — called a log rule — showing, according to the careful calcu- 

 lation of the author, the number of feet, board measure, which a log of any given 

 size would yield when sawed into inch lumber. For half a century or more the 

 relative merits of these two log rules have been a source of frequent discussion, 

 there being a material difference in the figures given by these authorities. 



It may seem strange that there, need be any dispute over a mathematical prob- 

 lem of this kind. Certainly if saws were of the same thickness and sawyers 

 equally skillful there could be no variation in the results. But logs are not cylin- 

 drical; they are tapering, sometimes crooked, often rotten in spots, and apt to be 

 defective in various ways. Hence, in formulating a log rule for general use a ques- 

 tion arises as to the proper allowance for slabs, sawkerf, waste and the various 

 defects that may be found in almost any large lots of logs. It was on this matter 

 of allowance that Doyle and Scribner differed. 



The Doyle rule is based on a fixed, arbitrary formula which is fairly correct as 

 to medium-sized logs, but is inaccurate, necessarily so, as to others. The formula is 

 this : Subtract four from the diameter in inches ; square one-fourth of the remainder, 

 and multiply the product by the length in feet. Hence, for a 24 inch log 12 feet long 

 the process is as follows: 24 — 4=20; 20-^-4=5; 5^5^25; 25 x 12 (length in 

 feet) = 300, the number of feet in the log. The same result can be obtained by 



