24 A MANUAL FOR NORTHERN WOODSMEN 
corner to leave there his initials, or some mark peculiar to 
him which will identify it as his work, together with the 
year in which the survey was made. The same thing may 
be done by a succeeding surveyor. 
Practice in all these matters, however, varies a good deal 
in different parts of the country. The methods preset ibed 
for use in the United States land surveys will be found on 
later pages of this volume. 
Lines. A property line in the forests of Germany is kept 
cleared out several yards wide and blocks of cut stone are 
deeply set along it near enough together so that one may be 
seen from another. In addition, the range of a transit line 
is inscribed upon them. This renders the property limit 
prominent and durable, and, further, defines it to within a 
quarter of an inch. 
Such ideal marking is seldom to be looked for in this 
country, but the ends to be aimed at, which in the fore¬ 
going case were attained, should be in the mind of every 
man who has to do with forest boundaries. A property 
owner’s interests are first, to have his bounds 'prominent so 
that he and other parties may know where they are and so 
that there will be no excuse for trespass; second, to have 
them durably marked for obvious reasons; and third, to 
have them so closely defined that all possible causes of 
dispute may be avoided. 
Stone walls, ditches, and fences are the common bounds 
of property in settled and half-settled countries, and each 
of these methods of delimitation has its grade of efficiency, 
considered from the above points of view. In large forest 
areas blazed trees are the means almost universally em¬ 
ployed for the purpose. That system has been reasonably 
satisfactory in the past. It would have been more so had 
care and system always been employed in the marking and 
more attention paid to renewal. 
The directions for marking lines in timbered lands, as 
contained in the “ Manual of Instructions for the Survey 
of the Public Lands of the United States,” are as follows: 
All lines on which are to be established the legal comer boun¬ 
daries will be marked after this method, viz.: Those trees which 
may be intersected by the line will have two chops or notches cut 
