SAMPLING IN TREE MEASUREMENT SALES 



ON NORTHERN REGION NATIONAL FORESTS 



By 



Donald W. Lynch 1/ 

 and 



Roy Ao Chapman 2/ 



INTRODUCTION 



PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 



Reliable short cuts or time-saving methods are urgently needed in 

 routine phases of timber sale administration on the national forests. 

 With a limited budget for conducting timber sale business, a forest 

 officer often finds his time so completely occupied with the details 

 of measuring the products that he must slight the more important 

 forestry jobs such as marking timber, locating logging roads, and 

 supervising sale procedures. Sample log scaling, tree measurement, 

 and sample tree measurement can save time and money on the measuring 

 job without a great sacrifice of accuracy. 



Sampling is recognized as a reliable short cut in many fields of forest 

 and range management. As sampling techniques are developed and under- 

 stood, more and more confidence is placed in the results. Prior to 

 1941 there v/as a reluctance to use sampling in connection with the 

 sale of forest products. It was believed that sampling just wasn't 

 that good. However, in that year two publications presented some 

 convincing results on the use of sample log scaling in Forest Service 

 timber sales. (7_, 8) 3/ Sampling methods were applied to log scaling 



1/ Research Forester, Northern Rocky Mountain Forest and Range 



Experiment Station. 

 2/ Statistician, Division of Forest Economics, U. S. Forest Service, 



Washington, D. C, 

 3/ Figures in parentheses refer to literature cited. 



