PRACTICE OF TIMBER ESTIMATING 
183 
in small bodies of timber and in tracts of small dimensions. 
This is because a man can really see and grasp them. 
Such estimates are particularly useful for timber of small 
value or in very bunchy and irregular woods, which it is 
hard to survey. In such circumstances the judgment of a 
good woodsman is sometimes the best valuation that is 
practicable. 
The ability to estimate timber after this fashion is gained 
by practice, and is based on personal experience and ca¬ 
pacity ; consequently each man goes about it in a way of his 
own. To know the area of the tract in question is generally 
of great assistance, and most men will be continually study¬ 
ing the matter of average stand per acre. As a prelimi¬ 
nary step in arriving at this it is generally desirable to settle 
maximum and minimum stand as well. 
For the contents of single trees a woodsman may rely 
on a mere glance, or he may figure carefully. A northern 
Maine lumberman, for instance, looking at a fair-sized 
spruce might estimate that it will cut a log 10 inches in 
diameter at the top and 30 feet long, and such a log he 
might know will measure 180 feet in local scaling prac¬ 
tice. Again, in regions where logs are cut short, and 
several are taken from a good-sized tree, men frequently 
jot down the estimated contents of the several logs and 
add up the figures to get the tree’s total contents. Using 
such methods to get at the size of the trees, lumbermen 
then go on, in one way or another, to get the contents of 
bodies of timber or stand per acre. 
Frequently, however, the impression gained is a direct 
one, of quantity on a whole tract or of constituent bunches. 
A man cannot tell just how such figures come into his 
mind, but they do arise there, dependent somehow on his 
experience, perhaps in laying out roads or chopping timber. 
Such training is effective, and when the judgment arising 
as a result of it has been actually tested and found suffi¬ 
ciently close and reliable for any given purpose, it would be 
folly not to use it. But every one knows that such judg¬ 
ments are fallible, as in the nature of the case they could 
not fail to be. Differences in size and height may escape 
a man if the stands traversed look generally alike; the 
atmosphere and the lav of the land both have an effect on 
