A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other CountriesFernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
History
A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other Countries
Fernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
Forests and forestry -- History
Plane table and compass were the instruments which came into use in the
beginning of the 18th century. But not until the latter half of that
century were extensive forest surveys and maps of various character
made, especially in Prussia under Wedell, Kropff and Hennert.
The methods of measurement of wood developed still later. Until
Oettelt’s time no method of precise determination of volumes was known,
everything being estimated by cords or by diameter breast-high and
height, or by the number of boards which a tree would make (board
feet?).
The diameter was sometimes used as a price maker, the price increasing
in direct proportion to the diameter increase. Oettelt calculated the
volume of coniferous trees as cones, and _Vierenklee_, who wrote a book
on mathematics for the use of foresters, calculated timbers with the top
removed by using the average diameter, to which Hennert added the
volume of a cone with the difference of the two diameters as a base, to
make the total tree volume.
Most measurements of standing trees were, of course, made on the
circumference, for, in the absence of calipers, the diameter could be
directly measured only on the felled tree. Doebel had already measured
the height by means of a rectangular triangle, and the first real
hypsometer with movable sights was described by Jung in 1781; and a
complete instrument, which could be used for measuring both height and
diameter at any height, similar to some more modern ones, was
constructed by Reinhold.
Determination of the real wood contents in a cord of wood and of the
volume of bark by measurement was taught by Oettelt, and the method of
immersion in water and measuring the displaced volume, by Hennert
(1782).
In 1785, Krohne first called attention to the variation of the increment
in different age classes and the need of determining the accretion for
each separately.
In 1789, Trunk taught how to determine average felling age increment,
and also the method of determining the change of diameter classes, which
is now used by the United States Forest Service: “On good soil a tree
grows one inch in three years, on medium soil in four years, on poor
soil in five years.” With this knowledge, the attainment of a given
diameter, or the change from one diameter or age class to the next could
be calculated.
Volume tables were at Trunk’s command, and Paulsen in 1787, Kregting in
1788, mention periodic yield tables; but generally speaking “ocular
taxation” or estimating was the rule, checked by experience in actual
fellings, the method of the American timber looker. Generally, of
course, only the log timber was estimated as with us, and only the very
roughest estimating or rather guessing was in vogue until near the end
of the period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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