THE WOODSMAN’S HANDBOOK. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The purpose oi the Woodsman’s Handbook is to give a collection 
of tables and rules of practical use to lumbermen, foresters, and 
others interested in the measurement of wood and timber. The 
Handbook is not intended asa treatise on forest mensuration, and 
many tables and iacts of interest to students of advanced forest 
mathematics are omitted. 
Only such information asis deemed of immediate practical value 
to American woodsmen is included. For this reason many rules 
for computing the cubic contents of logs and trees are not men- 
tioned. The cubic foot is used commercially in this country to a 
very limited extent, and therefore only the simplest rules for its 
use are given. In the discussion of growth and yield in the second 
volume the author will confine himself also to the simplest 
methods of investigation. Those who wish to inform themselves 
in the more advanced portions of forest mensuration are referred 
to technical treatises on the subject. 
The unit of measure most commonly used in this country for 
selling logs and lumber is the board foot. The amount of manu- 
factured lumber which can be sawed from logs of different dimen- 
sions is shown in log rules. Satisfactory log rules are difficult to 
construct, because the sawed product of logs depends on the skill 
of the sawver and on the kind of machinery used, which neces- 
sarily vary. There are now in use in the United States and Canada 
over forty different log rules for board feet. Many oi them are 
admitted to bé inaccurate and unfair by their users, who continue 
9 
