Measurements of the Cubical Contents of Forest Crops: being a Critical Investigation into the Methods of Measuring Sample Plots, with special reference to the Liability to Error

Abstract

SYLVICULTURAL research is becoming more and more dependent on observations made in permanent sample plots. These plots are marked out in the forest, treated according to the desired experimental methods, and the volume of timber standing in them is periodically measured. The value of such observations is entirely dependent on the accuracy with which the volume of standing crops can be measured, and even small errors in the measurement of any plot may lead to very false results. Thus if the volume of a plot increases in five years by 20 per cent., an error of + 3 per cent. in the first measurement and –3 per cent. in the second may reduce the increment, as measured, to about 13 per cent. Fair accuracy in measurement can be assured if a large number of sample trees can be felled for detailed scaling, but the felling of numerous sample trees is generally sufficient to upset the sylvicultural experiment in hand.

Measurements of the Cubical Contents of Forest Crops: being a Critical Investigation into the Methods of Measuring Sample Plots, with special reference to the Liability to Error.

By M. D. Chaturvedi. (Oxford Forestry Memoirs, No. 4.) Pp. xv + 142. (London: Oxford University Press, 1926.) Paper, 10s. net cloth, 12s. 6d. net.