Part IV. Timber Estimating 
SECTION I 
INTRODUCTION 
Methods of estimating timber vary greatly in different 
regions and with different men. They vary also with the 
value of the timber involved and with the purpose for 
which the work is done. In this last connection cost is 
a guiding principle; in general, that method of doing a 
piece of work is best which secures a result sufficiently 
accurate \|or the purpose with the smallest expenditure 
of time and money. 
Lump Estimate by the eye has not gone out of use, and 
in fact never will cease to be employed. The immediate 
judgment that a good lumberman forms, simply by walk¬ 
ing through a piece of timber, that it contains a hundred 
thousand, a million, or ten million feet, is for many pur¬ 
poses close enough to the mark. 
Similarly an experienced man, in timber of a kind 
with which he is familiar, forms an idea by direct impres¬ 
sion of how much a piece of land will yield per acre. The 
men who can do that are more numerous than those who 
are able to judge the whole piece. The faculty is easier 
to acquire, and in general the results are safer and more 
reliable. 
Such estimates as these are indispensable in actual 
business. Frequently they enable a man to pass correctly 
upon a proposition for purchase or sale. But while 
their necessity and their reliability within limits may be 
admitted, no illusions should be indulged in with regard 
to them. For one woodsman who can actually give a 
close and reliable estimate after these methods, there are 
many who only think they can; nothing is better known 
in the timber business than widely variant and totally 
erroneous estimates of standing timber. Further, a man 
