The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1897-03-11
FLOCKS BY HIMSELF
The Cruiser, a Product Of the Woods,
Might Help Uncle Sam
Out Of Hole
If the Latter Could Now Get Him to
Tell What He Knows Of Res
ervation Pine.

4
G. C. Kelly has contributed another
interesting article to the Minneapolis
Journal, which describes a character
familiar to the UNIONS readers, It
is therefore copied entire:
''All these timber troubles between
Uncle Sam and his Red Lake pine
land estimators have been caused by |
the mistake of hiring politicians, IN
stead of pine timber cruisers, to do the
work estimating. Now Uncle Sam
seems to have realized this fact him
self, and the appointments made last
week Of men to check up the old
estimates number estimators recog-
nized by the lumber fraternity as com
petent, experienced and reliable men,
and it is the first time on record that
such men have been set to the work.
The cruiser, as the timber estimator is
called in the lumber trade, is to the
lumber business what the pitcher is to
the baseball nine. He is the man who
makes or breaks the company. On
the cruisers knowledge of his business,
his perfect reliability, and his absolute
honesty, the manufacturers OF lumber
in the big saw mill centers have to
rely for knowledge of the tracts of pine
that are the. fountain head of their
success. The cruiser must be a good
Judge Of standing pine, and must be
able to tell exactly how much and of
what quality each forty-acre tract his
company owns or wants to buy, is
likely to cut. He must also be able to
make detailed report of the facilities
for getting out the logs from each
tract, it's distanc from the stream or
lake on which the logs will be banked
for summer driving to market, and the
cost and possibilities for railway-like
logging road broad, smooth, always
descending slowly to the waterside,
no matter how rough, billy and rocky
the country may be. He must be an
engineer without transit or level, and
surveyor without compass or solar,
for he must also be able to locate any
tract with perfect certainty as to its
exact boundaries even though the tract
has never been surveyed by the gov
ernmept engineers. All this must be
done with no more weighty and costly
instruments than a pocket compass and
his own stout pair of legs, with which
he can pace off the miles with the ex
actitude of a steel tape line. He is in
variably man who has been brough
up in the woods, and has spent his lif'
in the lumber business. He must b
Injured to hardship until he Cal
''freeze an Iniun dog,'' the uppermos
limit of human insensibility to cold
endure as much heat as brick wall
regard rain, snow, hail, sleet, wit
equal Indifference; and be able t
tighten his belt, Injun fashion, and liv
on plug tobacco and leaves for weel
He starts into the wilderness, us
ually, alone, sometimes in pairs, an
rarely in companies, carrying HI
blankets and enough ''grub,' y that i
pork, flour and tea, to last about
month, all on his back, after the maj
F ner of the Indian packer. He som
times carries a little shelter tent, b.
generally the canopy of heaven is h
cover, and a sheltering tree the on
retreat in time of storm. He has
plat book, each page Of which bea
the diagram of subdivided TOWNSHIP
or tract six miles square, and in th
book it is his duty to make a minatu
map of the country he covers, Civil
the amount of standing pine on ea
forty-acre tract, with marginal not
as to its accessibility, distance fro
streams, size of water courses, grou
contour, and all other details that m
be of use.
If the timber is thick, he genera
PAGES the forty into ten or twenty a.
tracts, and proceeds to estimate ca
separately. His accuracy of spa
stepping as he is forced to over
sorts of obstacles and in all sorts
directions, is something akin to
marvellous. When the timber is e
to see and stands alike, he will S
off an acre and count up each t,
guessing how many feet, board me-
ure, it will make when cut up at
saw mill, and multiply the result
the number OF acres. If he is an
pert, or clear there will not b
difference Of 1000 feet to the ;
from the guess and the result at
mill. Under favorable conditions
B can finish section, containing six
forty-acre tracts, in day, but W
the timbersis in little clumps, wi
scattered, it is different, and he !
trudge all day, accomplishing n
less, though with infinitely more Ia
The cruiser is his own timekee