work planned and its extent estimated, without the operator having to leave his office.

3. Stand tables and stock tables (see Tables 6 and 7) give a summary of the number of trees and the volume of wood per acre. These tables enable the operator to ascertain just how much timber he will secure by cutting to any given diameter limit, and at the same time just how much timber will be left to form the basis of the future crop. Stand tables taken with studies of the rate of growth of the different species of trees make it possible to learn how long it will be necessary to wait until a second cut can be had on a given area, and how much timber may be cut at that time. The graduate students in the department of forestry, State College of Agriculture, at Cornell University, perform such field work as a part of their course of instruction. During the month of May, 1914, a reconnaissance survey and estimate of timber upon a certain part of the State Forest Preserve in the vicinity of Big Indian, Ulster county, New York, was made. The area examined comprised lot 3 of Division 2, and lots 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Division 3 of the Livingston tract which is a part of great lot 7 of the Hardenburgh patent. This tract lies in a solid body just north and west of the highway from Big Indian to Claryville in the town of Shandaken.

The area according to the published land list, is 4,173.86 acres, but in our work we used a strict horizontal survey which computed gave an area of 3,429.04 acres. This variation in area is largely due to the difference between surface and horizontal measurement. An examination of the map which shows irregularity of lines will explain other discrepancies.

The work was done by four students and one member of the forestry faculty. The first problem was the location of the property boundaries of the tract. Survey stations, to be used as bases for running strips, were established at intervals of ten chains apart as the boundary lines were being retraced. The plan of such a survey is to gridiron the area with strips usually one chain (66 ft.) in width upon which all trees which are to be taken are measured with calipers at breast-height (41⁄2 feet from the ground).

The work is done by four men working as a crew or unit. Two men are chaining and the other two are calipering, each caliper man covering the half of the strip on his side of the center where the chain lies. The head chainman has a compass and the front end of the chain is attached to the back of his belt. He runs the compass and produces a line from station to station. Such lines are parallel and the result is a succession of parallel lines across the area. The chainmen together measure distance and tally the chains. They also note topography, location of streams and roads, different types of growth and other items of value. The measurements made by the caliper men are called off by species and diameters and tallied by the rear chainman.

The north boundary of lot 1, Division 3, was run out and the southwest corner of the lot located. The line was continued to "Cone Rock," and this point also entered on the map. The town line between Shandaken and Denning has been a matter of contention. The State Engineer has, however, accepted the 1892 retracing of the Cockburn line of 1784 as constituting the boundary between the towns of Shandaken and Denning. Cone Rock is at the westerly end of the so-called Davis line of 1846, which has been proved to be no boundary of any property whatever. The town line was not traced for lack of time; two points on it were located, one at either end, and these connected by a straight line (see map).

From the survey stations strip estimates were run one-quarter of a mile (20 chains) apart, each strip being one chain wide. These strips crossed the main ridge being almost at right angles to the town line (bearing S. 30 degrees W. and N. 30 degrees E., respectively). All balsam fir and hemlocks seven inches and over in diameter at breast-height, and all hardwoods thirteen inches and over in diameter at breast-height, were calipered and recorded. The lines were run with a hand compass and distances measured with a 66-foot steel tape. Eighteen such strips were run, covering a total of 170.17 acres, about 5 per cent. of the total area of 3,429.04 acres. The acreage was kept distinct for the two types (see forest description) and for burns and cut-over areas. Alienated areas were not estimated. There were:

The actual estimating required two weeks, and an additional day was spent in taking height measurements. Altogether twenty days were spent in field work. If salaries had been paid the men would probably have received an average of $50 a month* and expenses. This is $1.66 per man per day, or a total of $166 for the five men. Allowing a liberal $1 per day per man for subsistence, etc., would have made the expenses total $100, a grand total of $266 for 3,429 acres surveyed, or 7.76 cents per acre. For a larger project, bigger crew and less rugged topography, the cost could easily be reduced to five cents an acre. The cost of the office work came to one cent an acre.

The data were worked up in Ithaca for greater convenience. The estimate sheets were tabulated separately for slope type and for ridge type, so as to get the total number of trees of each species and of each diameter. These totals, divided by the number of acres estimated in each type, gave a stand table, showing the number of trees of each species and diameter on an average acre for each type. (See tables 4 and 6 in forest description.)

In order to figure the volumes it was necessary to decide upon what volume table to use for each species, to prepare a height curve for the species and then to apply these heights to the chosen volume table by interpolation. For balsam fir Table 41, page 55 of United States Department of Agriculture Bulletin No. 55 was used. For hemlock of the smaller diameters, Table 6, page 118 of Forest Service Bulletin 36 was used, and for the larger diameters, Table 12, page 124 of the same bulletin.

For beech, birch, maple and the miscellaneous hardwoods, Tables 2, 5, 7 and 2 respectively on pages 114, 117, 119 and 114, respectively, of Bulletin 36 of the forest service, were used. For basswood and ash, it was necessary to adopt Table 29 of the forest

*One party chief at $1,600 per year; four assistants at $30 per month.