178 A MANUAL FOR NORTHERN WOODSMEN 
There is, of course, great variety in the details of the 
work as practiced by different men, and a plan that is 
really inadequate may be effective nevertheless because 
of the ability of the cruiser. Such a method as the fore¬ 
going cannot be called -a survey. It is an estimate purely, 
depending on the training of the cruiser and subject to the 
errors which change in his condition and his surroundings 
introduce. Nor does the fact that all the area is supposed 
to be covered give assurance on the matter of accuracy. 
It may indeed set up a standard too difficult to be actually 
carried out, so becoming a source of additional error. 
4. The following, from an old Michigan cruiser whose 
work has been largely in hard woods, serves to introduce 
the principle of covering a percentage of the tract to be 
estimated, a principle more fully illustrated in connection 
with large tracts on later pages. 
I have been a surveyor, engineer, “land-looker” since boyhood, 
and the system that I use is based upon the information that I 
have been able to pick up along that line during that period. 
The work has carried me to the forests of nearly every state that 
counts forest products among its most important assets. 
The usual object of an estimate is to fix a value that can be 
used as a medium of exchange, although I have recently been 
called upon to estimate many tracts just before the commence¬ 
ment of logging operations in order to ascertain what the probable 
product would be. 
The report of the cruiser is required to show the log scale of a 
given tract, also the amount of tan bark, cord wood, telephone 
poles, railroad ties, etc., — in fact the entire forest product that is 
of value. This must be not only of standing timber, but of down 
timber that has a value as well. 
His report must also show the topography of the tract, and the 
channels through which the product must be passed in the course 
of its transportation from the land, whether by railroad, water, or 
logging road. 
This work must be based upon some system that will eliminate 
so far as is possible all guesswork. There are many systems of 
cruising now in use, each of which has its advocates. I do not 
know of any other cruiser who is using the same system that I use, 
perhaps for the reason that I have made it up from my own work. 
In my work I use a tree caliper. I have a book printed especially 
for the tally of the trees as I call them off to my assistant. I have 
also a form of report blank made to fit the rest of the scheme. 
You will note that I number each forty-acre parcel in an undi¬ 
vided section on the same plan that sections are numbered in a 
