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How Trees Are Measured

I WAS walking one day with a forester trained in the Black Forest. A beautiful shagbark of unusual height attracted my attention. I asked how tall he thought it was. Imagine my surprise when he shut up like a jack-knife--his hips the hinge, his head between his knees, his back to the tree. Not satisfied with the first inverted glimpse he thus obtained, he moved a step or two nearer to the tree and looked again. Then he straightened up, smiled at my bewilderment, paced the distance to the foot of the tree, and said that it was about ninety feet high.