TIMBER MEASURING.-STILL SjLoP FEED INCREASES THE GROWTH OF WOOL. 
249 
Secondly—If 1 chance to be deceived in the out¬ 
side, and knock for admittance, not to urge the neces¬ 
sity and advantage of useful reading in a family, if, 
upon entering, I find the house in extra disorder—the 
mistress of it ordering one child to sit down, another 
to stand along, or clean that chair, and let the gentle¬ 
man sit down ; or the water-pail, the broom, and 
mop in the same comer; or the woman with un¬ 
combed head, gown gaping open, shoes slip-shod, or 
an apron over her shoulders, instead of being in its 
proper place; or if, upon addressing the master of 
the house, the wife answers first positively. 
Thirdly—[ never go in where I find a parcel of 
rubbish, or tubs and pails, or sundry other things 
about the front door-yard. As a general thing, 
where the garden is uncultivated the mind is also, 
and if there is not a taste for neatness and economy 
about the house and yard, there is none for improve¬ 
ment in knowledge and wisdom. 
Fourthly—Here and there we find one who is 
tired of being asked to subscribe ; who will shut the 
door rather hard and unceremoniously in your face, 
with a broad, “ No—I don’t want any of your pa¬ 
pers or the maid being instructed says, “ The lady 
isn’t at home; or, in going to carry your address, 
only steps behind the next door, and returns saying, 
“ The lady is engaged, and can’t attend to looking at 
the paper ; perhaps you may call again,” &c., &c. 
TIMBER MEASURING 
The usual mode of measuring round timber is to 
take the girth of a regularly tapering tree in the 
middle, and consider it as its mean girth throughout; 
then to call one-fourth of this girth the side of the 
log when squared; a deduction of one-twelfth or 
often one-tenth of the whole girth is sometimes 
made as an allowance for the thickness of the bark ; 
then one-fourth of the girth in inches, is multiplied 
by itself, and the product by the length of the log in 
feet, and the last product is then divided by 144, the 
result of which is presumed to be the cubic contents of 
the log when squared, in feet. But it is no such 
thing. Although it is no easy matter to do away 
with an old and established, though erroneous cus¬ 
tom, it may be well to show in a distinct manner, 
how these errors may be avoided, and put it in the 
power of both the buyer and the seller to adopt the 
true method at their pleasure. 
Let us take, for instance, a round log of timber 60 
feet long, 54 inches in girth at one end, 18 inches at 
the other, and 36 inches in the middle. Now, by 
the usual method, one-fourth of 36 is 9, which, 
multiplied by itself, gives 81; this multiplied by 60 
gives 4860, which divided by 144, gives 33f feet, the 
presumed contents of the log when squared. This 
method may be illustrated 
by the adjoining figure, the 
shadowed segments of 
which, show the parts that 
would be cut off by the axe 
in squaring, and is obviously 
to the advantage of the sell¬ 
er; for the four triangles 
occasioned by the deficiency 
of the squaring, are includ¬ 
ed and paid for. And, be¬ 
sides, the buyer often sus- Fig. 62. 
tains another loss by an excess of bark, or by the 
saw-dust, when the log is converted into joists or 
scantlings 
Every tapering tree is the frustrum of a cone, 
whether it tapers more or less; and if squared, it is 
the frustrum of a pyramid. Now, what mathema¬ 
tician would think of taking the middle of the frus¬ 
trum of a cone or that of a pyramid, and calling it its 
mean girth or mean area ? The great difficulty, in 
practice, in determining the true contents, of either of 
these figures, is for the want of an easy and concise 
rule. For a substitute, I will offer the following, 
which will apply equally true to all regularly tapering 
bodies, whether their ends be round, square, triangu¬ 
lar, or any other figure :— 
To the area of each end of the body, add four times 
the area of its middle ; multiply the sum by one-sixth 
of its length, and the product will be the true contents. 
In practice, every stick of timber should either be 
estimated as a regular four-sided prism, or as the 
frustrum of a pyramid ; and in order to know the 
greatest square that can be formed out of a circle of 
a given diameter or girth, observe the following 
rule: 
Multiply the diameter by the decimal .7071, or the 
girth by .2251, and either of the products will be the 
side of the stick when squared. 
Example. What is the greatest quantity of square 
timber, in one stick, that can be hewn out of a log 60 
feet long, 4£ feet in girth at one end, 1£ feet at the 
other, and 3 feet in the middle ? The girth 4.5 feet 
multiplied by .2251 gives 1.01295, the dimensions of 
the sides in feet and decimals at the largest end; 
this number multiplied by itself gives 1.026 feet, the 
area of the largest end. The girth 1.5 multiplied by 
.2251 gives .33765, the dimensions of the sides in the 
decimal of a foot, at the smallest end; this num¬ 
ber multiplied by itself gives .114 of a foot, the area 
of the smallest end. The girth 3 feet multiplied by 
.2251 gives .6753, the dimensions of the sides in the 
decimal of a foot, in the middle ; this number multi¬ 
plied by itself gives .456 of a foot, the transverse area 
of the log in the middle. The area of the middle 
multiplied by 4 gives 1.824, which being added to 
.114 and 1.026 is equal to 2.964 ; this number mul¬ 
tiplied by one-sixth of the length of the log gives 
29.64 feet, the cubic contents sought. It will be ob¬ 
served, that a log of the same dimensions as the 
above, estimated by the usual method, will contain 
33| cubic feet, which is 4T1 feet in favor of the 
seller. 
In determining the length of the side of a stick of 
timber to be cut out of around log, two decimal figures 
will be sufficiently near to multiply by, for practice, 
which will render the operation much less tedious. 
New York, July 4, 1845. B. 
STILL-SLOP FEED INCREASES THE 
GROWTH OF WOOL. 
I am in the midst of sheep-shearing—later than I 
ever sheared before. My still-slop flock are turning 
out better fleeces than I ever before sheared. One 
ewe’s fleece, of good fine wool, weighed 5 lbs., and 
several, 4£ lbs., and one yearling, 3£ lbs. I have not 
yet sheared my bucks, some of which will turn out 
9 or 10 lbs. of good wool. The flock fed on still- 
slops this year, fell short in their previous shearing 
