Diameter vs. circumfrence

[Frickman]

I have posted here on the forum that I purchase all of my timber from private landowners. That entails alot of running around looking at tracts. That's ok, it's part of the game. I actually enjoy it some, I get to walk around different woods.

I went and looked at some timber yesterday that was supposed to be 14" to 30" in diameter. Twenty acres of a larger tract. I drove an hour each way to see post timber 4" to 10" in diameter. I interviewed the landowner on the phone and he assured me that these trees were big, he measured alot of them. Here he measured circumfrence and called it diameter. And next to the ground around the root swell to boot. Don't people know the difference between the two?

Many of the textbooks I had in school, all the way back to grade school, had different information and tables in the back. Things like how to find the area of circle, how big is a cord of wood, how many miles around the earth's equator, things like that. Even some of the notebooks and folders I used had this stuff printed on the back covers. Didn't these people see this stuff? I don't know why they didn't learn it, it was everywhere when I was in school.

This is probably the fifth or sixth time this past summer and fall that this same thing has happened to me. It's always been on a tract that is an hour from home. I try to get a feel for what the landowner has before I make a long trip, but if they give me the wrong information I end up wasting my time.

[chucker]

   heard that frickman!! those were real "peachy"-keen days way back then !! a time when time ment something other then just their time... some people just dont get it when a inch is just that and breast height differs only when a chest is less then 4' high...  times have changed ! but our great teaching system these days has gone to the dogs......

[tonich]

Here he measured circumfrence and called it diameter. And next to the ground around the root swell to boot.

 
Thanks Lord, you do not have to pay the timber on the stump.

[Phorester]

It is frustrating, especially when a landowner insists he's right.  Had a fellow call me about a 10 foot diameter white oak he had.  Me; "are you sure it's 10 foot diameter?  That's awful big."  Him; "of course it is, I know my math and I measured it myself!"  Me; "do you mean the distance around the outside of the trunk?"  Him;  "of course I do- the distance around the trunk - you know, the diameter!"    (And he thought I was the dumb one for asking the question )

So now I don't ask them for the diameter or the circumfrence.  I ask them if they mean the measurement around the outside of the trunk or the measurement through the middle.

[chucker]

     "PLEASE STOP " your confuzzeling me !! i kant tink.......

[beenthere]

.........

So now I don't ask them for the diameter or the circumfrence.  I ask them if they mean the measurement around the outside of the trunk or the measurement through the middle.

Then he says "Ya can't measure through the middle 'til after the tree is cut down" !!   

Ya can't win. 

[ErikC]

 I am in my thirties and it was easy to find all these types of things when I was in school, as frickman mentioned.

[Ironwood]

Even my urban tree trimmers get that one wrong. I now ask them to "hug the tree", if it's BIG then can you touch your hands together? Feel like I am talking to 1st graders sometime. I went to look at a 5' diameter cherry a few years ago, REAL mathmaticians these folks are


       Ironwood

[Sawyerfortyish]

Come and look at my tree it's just beautiful 50"dia and at least 140' tall and 80' to the first limb. Yea I hear this at least once a week. Like Phorester says I'll ask did you measure around the tree? I already know what the answer is. Yea at ground leval. Daiameter circumferance it's all the same isn't it.
  So a 50" tree ends up being about 16"dbh and maybe 40' all the way up into the tiny brush at the very top.
 I actually had a guy show up at the mill with about 15 cedar trees no more than 2"-3" dia tied to the roof of his car and wanted me to make 2x2 and 4x4s outta them. He told me on the phone they were 6-8" dia so I said yea I can do that bring them over and I'll cut them for you. People just don't know or can't picture the differance between diameter and circumferance.

[Ron Wenrich]

I always ask if they can reach around the trees and if their fingers meet.  For me, that's an 18" dbh tree. 

[RSteiner]

I have had similar experience when custom sawing.  The customer will have a pile of logs and he has measured the butt end diameter and figures the log will produce lumber at least that diameter.  They rarely consider that the small end of the log dictates the size and volume of a log.

Or, some one wants some trees taken down and they will tell me they are at least 20" to 24" in diameter.  Usually there is a trask barrel near by which usually measure some where around 22" in diameter.  I will ask them are the trees as big around as this barrel?  Most of the time the answer is well not quite that big.

Randy

[Cedarman]

I have told this story before, but I still love it.  In Oklahoma in the canyons (gulleys) there are some big cedars 24" and up. 

A lady calls the logger (the one who told me this story)  and says she has a patch of cedar she wants to get rid of.  She says they are 2' or more in diameter.  He asks are you taking aroudn the tree or across the tree.  She says across not around.  So he heads out for a look see.  He gets to the place and visits with the lady and asks where the cedars are.  Those over there behind the house.  Sure enough there was this big field of cedar behind the house all about 10 to 12 feet tall and 2 to 3' in diameter if you count to the tips of the limbs.
She thought that is what he meant.  Talk about having your balloon popped.  Actual dbh was 2 to 3".

[Jeff]

This reminded me of this old thread, where I had become so jaded from hearing and seeing so many over estimations of what a property owner had. I learned to never assume after this one.

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,4567.0.html

[metalspinner]

On a much smaller scale than you guys, I talk with lots of foklks about their yard trees.  I have come up with a way to help catagorize their trees that's easy for them to understand.

Me : "Is it fatter than a telephone pole?"

Them : "Yes."

Me: "Is it fatter than your streeing wheel?"

Them : "Yes."

Me : "I'll see you this afternoon."

[okmulch]

Here in Oklahoma when I get a call from landowners telling me how many acres they have of cedar trees I have to be careful. Most landowners tell me how many acres they have total including fields hardwoods etc. I am only interested in how many acres are in cedar trees. I have to ask a lot of questions to make sure it is something I want to further investigate instead of driving all over creation. Most of the time landowners and myself have different ideas of what large number of cedar trees and sizes actually are.

[red oaks lumber]

and these people vote!
 when customers bring logs to my mill for sawing ,there all 20" and "veneer'' i go outside to see them.small and looking like pulp wood  i always ask them ,you bringing the logs on the next load? they stare at me like deer in the headlights.

[Phorester]

From Ron:  "I always ask if they can reach around the trees and if their fingers meet.  For me, that's an 18" dbh tree." 

Be careful.  We had a fellow say this a few years ago about a 18" diameter black walnut he had, that his neighbor told him could be worth over $1,000.  Un-huh.....  Turns out that he meant when he put his hands around the tree, his fingers met, not his arms.   

[Frickman]

Thanks for the link Jeff, I had forgotten about that thread. On it Ron Scott said that you always have to go look at the timber. That's the view I have. It would be nice though to know what you are going to look at, that way I could schedule some of these wild goose chases for rainy days. The other day when I looked at this tract was one of the nicest days we've had in a while. I would have much rather been at the mill working than out driving around.

Buying timber like I do, from private landowners, is a numbers game. I actually purchase and harvest about ten percent of the tracts I look at. Thats's about the industry average around here. I don't especially like wild goose chases, but they're part of the game. I just can't believe how little common knowledge and common sense that some people posess.

[SwampDonkey]

About the same as here Frick, only in recent years it was bidding wars like selling realestate. Stumpage being paid for mostly pulp wood got close to $1500/acre on 22-28 cord/acre ground. Lot's of failed loggers when reality set in.

[Ron Scott]

It's even worse when they don't know the location or legal description of their property so you can find it.

[Frickman]

Ron Scott,

I've had that problem before. I got called to go find a property somewhere in such and such county. The landowners had purchased the property sight unseen at auction five years previous and had no idea where it was. They had paid property taxes on it for five years and had never visited it. They were trying to get me to locate it for free. No thanks. Find it yourself and I'll come look at. They never called back.

[Ron Wenrich]

Some of those deeds are to properties that don't exist.  The county has them on the roles, but don't know where they're located.  As long as someone buys it, they'll keep on collecting the taxes.  They go up for tax sale every so often when the owners can't find it, and they stop paying taxes.  I've found some of those properties, but the deed search can be mind boggling.  I often had to go to warrant maps and take the ownership forward.  Good for rainy weather and you have nothing else to do.

[Tom]

We had a good example happen in our neighborhood.  A fellow had several hundred acres passed to him through family.  He built a private road and sold off lots.  When all the lots were sold, he was left with this long, narrow strip of land that he couldn't use because he had give the right of way to his land customes.  He was paying taxes on something he didn't want and the county wouldn't take it as a road unless he buried all kinds of infrastructure (water lines, etc) on it and paved it.   He just let it go for taxes. The county put it on the courthouse steps  for several years until someone came along and bought it for back taxes.  When he realized what he had, he quit paying taxes on it too.  Now it is "just there", being used for a road and no one adjacent to the property owns it and nobody wants it.   One day, perhaps, someone else will buy it on the courthouse steps.

[SwampDonkey]

Sounds like a mess. Here, we get a tax bill with the ID number on it. You can go to the Service NB office, get the map of it right then and there with the map coordinates of the corners, area in metric (ha/m²). Only trouble, it's just a map with lines on it, no aerial. You can pull an old orthophoto map at most of the offices with the property lines and old 25 year old photos in the underlying mosaic. They might even have paper copies of the new orthos made up. I know I've seen them at some farmer's offices before. You do have access to up to date photos as well from the web. Trouble is 99 % of the citizenry wouldn't have the programs at home to open the photo up and display it in a GIS in the proper map datum. Many don't even own a computer. If they are lucky they have a cheapo Garmin GPS to find a corner with the given map coordinates. Most older folks don't have one of those either and don't know what one is. Hopefully, the Garmin has the map datum used by your state. Good luck with that.  Even then it would be like me tossing an apple in a hay field and say go find it. There is no straight line path to the corner by road.

For me it's easy, I have access to those new photos and the property line overlays. I can download the most up to date available off the web. I then can see where the photo is sitting on a GIS and can open my map book and trace the road network to where the property is. Roads I can also get free if I want in digital format for my GIS (shapefiles). One possible thing that might trip someone up that has all these gadgets and software is the property ID might be retired when 2 or 3 farms where combined to make one ID. And even so, I believe the Pan information off the service web site shows that it was retired so it's pretty much idiot proof if you check your ID number. You'd have to check it at the service NB office or an online account you have for $10/month.

It's easy to say you can find any property when you know the system. If you don't know the system then your pretty much relying on someone else. Or as Dirty Harry would say" Your S**T out of luck".

[Ron Wenrich]

All the counties have a map system, and most of them have it on photos.  But, there are properties that just aren't mapped.  They give those properties an ID number, but there isn't a map location for it. 

They tax trailers here, even if you don't own the land underneath it.  They have a tax ID number.  You better know that before you go to the tax sale.  You're not buying land.

Then we have those properties that overlap.  They're another joy.  The tax office isn't there to solve problems.  They're there to assess taxes and collect them.

[SwampDonkey]

They have survey engineers at our Service NB offices, maybe not all but I know a few who work at them. Our "tax offices" do more than collect the taxes and point fingers at file cabinets to search records from.  We have a separate assessment bureau that does the assessments and the municipalities have a slice of that tax to. My cousin is an assessor and his sister was also one in the Toronto area until she got tired of that rat race and came home to get a nursing degree.

[Frickman]

I'm glad you folks know how to do all that fancy detective work. I'll hire someone like you when I need your skills. If I have all the deeds and tax maps and a known corner I can do pretty good finding lines. I'm not a surveyor but I can find all the corners if there is any shred of evidence left on the property. My specialty is putting logs on the landing and lumber out the mill. That's what I do. I'll leave all the complicated stuff to you educated fellows.

[SwampDonkey]

I find it odd from reading a previous post that an owner wouldn't know his property he was purchasing or has owned for years. Why even own it? Are these speculators? I've never encountered an owner that didn't know his land. There might be the odd boundary dispute because both owners are too cheap to have a survey, but they know where it's sitting. Even out of province folks that ain't been here for decades know where their land is.

[Ron Scott]

Yes, some are speculators, absentee owners, and those who have inherited property that they never were aware of being in the family. Most don't understand legal descriptions, nor can they explain where the property is if they have never been on it nor even in the state or country that the property has been in.

Had one awhile back where a Vietnamese girl inherited 80 acres from her father. She was in California, the property was in Michigan, and she never was in Michigan, nor on the property, couldn't understand the deed, nor the property description, nor what the property was close to. I did find the property after several telephone calls, and   days of extra time, but still not sure how her father obtained the property.

Also, just had one a couple weeks ago where a wife in Vermont just inherited 40 acres after her husband died. She had never been to Michigan, nor was ever on the property, nor knew what the location was close to. I was able to walk her through the legal description she had and found out that the property was surrounded by State forest land on all four sides and had no legal access.

Locating forest land onwnerships are not always easy.

[SwampDonkey]

Inheritance is a different circumstance than the actual purchaser though. So I'll assume speculators with lots of money to waste. Sometimes it pays off, but usually many decades later because of regular inflation or a hot market driving prices sky high.  Just have to be in the right geographic area with a population boom. It's been a bust around here for a life time.

[Phorester]

At first many years ago I was amazed that so many landowners didn't know their boundary line locations.  Now I just realize that this is the way some people think (or don't think). I've had them walk right past a marked property line and not realize what those paint marks on trees, or old fences, posted signs, or a change in timber type meant. They continue on walking as if they were still on their property.  They can't intrepret aerial photos, survey plats, anything. 

I asked one landowner to locate his property lines on my aerial photo. He owned about 100 acres, but placed his property lines on the photo as encompassing well over 1,000 acres.  Couldn't understand photo scale, fields, creeks, roads on it. He just drew lines. Couldn't find his property lines in the woods either. Didn't beleive me when I would stop him far shorter than he wanted to walk when I found clear evidence of his lines.

Had one lady say that all the properties surrounding hers were surveyed, therefore hers was too.  That's a legally dangereous position to put yourself in. Had another landowner say he had a survey plat of his property, then handed me a blurry photocopy of the tax map with his parcel on it outlined with a black magic marker. 

Every once in awhile I get the urge to do a detailed investigation of property line locations on particular properties.  Just something that intrigues me about it to really get down to the nitty gritty.  I've gone so far as to take the metes and bounds of surveys and map them out myself on a redi-mapper.  I've found reversed bearings, mis-measured line lengths, surveys that came nowhere close to closing, etc.

[SwampDonkey]

Getting back to the speculators in my previous post. I have here a "Valuation Day" appraisal  for purpose of Capital gains when selling farm land. This is Dated October 1974.

125 ac Cultivated land $150/acre
10 ac Pastured land $40/acre
115 ac Wood land $20/acre  This is land that actually has merchantable timber, in those days when woodlots owners didn't liquidate their woods.

Potato shed 50 x 80 $32,000. This was brand new.
Gravity Fed spring $1000
10 room House $10,000

1970 MacCullough chain saw was on trade $150 highlight of the day.

Appraised at $73,400 including barns.

[Ron Wenrich]

I can't recall too many times that a landowner walked a property with me.  It didn't matter if I was doing procurement work or consulting work.  I never expected landowners to actually know their property all that well.  Most times the property came with the house or it was handed down. 

I always draw a map of the property well in advance of doing any work and quite often before I see the property.  Deed searches are easy to do and are good rainy day work.  When you go to the property and talk to the landowner, they'll see you are well prepared, and you can often tell them things about their land or the adjoiners that they didn't know.  Then, you look brilliant.   

I did work for guys that worked on distressed property.  The one was an attorney that did nothing but title searches.  The man found all types of timberland that owners no longer knew they had.  Sometimes he would force them onto the tax sales and buy them.  Sometimes he would contact the owner and buy them for a low value.   And if no owner was evident, he would do a quiet title.  Quite often he found property that nobody else knew who the owner was.  He kept me busy for a couple of years just selling timber.

Another guy bought well over 1,000 acres of distressed property.  He was a state forester with a pretty high position.  He retired and then timbered the properties.  Became very wealthy.

[WH_Conley]

Ron, you forgot tell what your personal opinion of this guy is.

[tughill]

Hi Guys,
New to FF, but grew up working in my grandfathers sawmill, and went on from there.

I'm not really surprised by people who don't really know what's on their land.  I have a neighbor, an older lady, who owns nearly 700 acres that she grew up on, but probably hasn't ever been more than 100 feet from the house/farmyard.

As far as measuring things, good luck.  It's sad, but there are plenty of folks that work in the trades that can barely use a tape measure, much less do metric/english conversions, or fractional/decimal conversions.

What does baffle me, is how much money people tie up in land, and pay taxes and all that, and don't even attempt to do any sort of management of the resources.

[Ron Wenrich]

As told to me by a realtor "They're just trees". 

[SwampDonkey]

Ron they all say that here to, and $50 an acre is about all they give it. If they are selling farmland, the price on the woodlot at the back is way low. One reason why the owners liquidate before selling. But, even if it was mature timber on a farm the buyer is interested in the farmland so the woods get priced low around here. Some loggers have tried buying these farms when the timber market was hot. They would log off the lot and get stuck with the farm. Usually not a great farm, marginal in those cases. Good farmland gets sold faster than housing.

[Phorester]

RON: "As told to me by a realtor "They're just trees".  Yep - they have no idea as to a monetary value of trees or timber.

A couple of my realtor stories.....  Had a realtor who was talking about how many acres there were in a certain tract.  He wanted to show me he was the "land expert" in the discussion.  Looking at the plat, I couldn't come up with the same number of acres he was figuring.  It was a rectangle and we were multiplying length x width of the perimeter & dividing by the # of square feet in one acre.  Finally he puffed out his chest, stuck his nose in the air and said condescendingly; "well, you probably don't know this but there are 40,000 square feet in one acre!"  I said, "no, there are 43,560 square feet in one acre".  He stammered and blustered "well, 40 thousand's close enough!"  He was automatically increasing every one of his acreage estimates by 10%.

Another realtor, like so many, had advertised a house as having "a lawn with magnificant old oak trees towering over the property", or something like that.   We've all seen the studies that show that having a house with trees is supposed to increase the value of the house, something I've always questioned.  So I asked him if he would reduce the price of the house if there were no trees in the lawn at all.  He looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world and said "No!" 
So the trees really had no value to him. 

[SwampDonkey]

Phorester, some realtors may be foresters, but really most of them have no training in the field of forestry and there isn't much of a course load to be a realtor. 

[Ron Wenrich]

Actually, there's a bigger course load to be a realtor than to be a forester.  Lots more realtors than foresters.

I have yet to do an appraisal for a realtor.  I've pointed out the advantages of appraisals and still they go out and make appraisals of a properties value.  I've also solicited business from banks and others that deal in land.  Never got a job from them.  They all know how to value land.  They go to the courthouse and look up similar values of land that has been sold in the area.

I had one landowner that I did a management plan on a recently purchased property.  He's the only one I ever did this for.  It shows how successful our profession has been in getting our ideas across.  Anyway, his timber was worth more than what he paid for the land.  When I told the realtor he did a disservice to his client, he told me he didn't care.  He got his commission and that's all that mattered.  It must be great being right all the time.

And, there is value to landscape trees.  There's a way to figure it up, but I haven't seen a realtor that can do it.  I've used the formula and have successfully used it in court. 

[Cedarman]

Realators are for selling houses.  The moral of this thread is do your homework when buying land and timber land, use the realator to push the paperwork through.  Around here most realators are women, they aren't about to get their nylons ripped.  This attitude opens the door for those women that will get out there and walk the land and woods and put them ahead of the pack.  Most of the men won't get their shoes dirty either.  Anytime I looked at land the realator gave me a map and said have at it.

[Onthesauk]

Sometimes works out.  The realtor we bought through represented an out of state trust.  He claimed that he had the property cruised and there was no marketable timber.  I'm pretty sure we've got twice the original property cost still standing, that after trading an acre or two of timber for all the roads and site work.

[SwampDonkey]

Realtors must be different here than down south because there is no way you could say their course load is heavier than studying forestry. Now, these people are not uneducated types. Many or most I should say do have business training, some are foresters, some customs agents, some nurses, farmers (yup I know a couple brothers who farm, have realestate, trucking and a funeral home) and so one. They often take up reastate as a side line, not a sole income. And that's true for most all I know who are into it, it's a side line business. The two farmers would be the only ones I know of that would ever ask to have an appraisal done on a lot. The rest are as you describe. I've tried soliciting from them and I got a flood of swamp land for sale, not appraisal.

[Ron Wenrich]

Some food for thought.  I've heard that timber is considered real estate until severed.  Then it becomes personal property.  There hasn't been a savvy realtor that has challenged the issue, but a lot of foresters would have to get their realtor's license if that would be the case.

I misspoke about the course load. 

[SwampDonkey]

I've also noticed a couple realestate outfits that brought foresters into their group all the sudden have begun using the aerial photos anyone can obtain for free off the government website. Before that, all you got was lines drawn on a map when displayed in the paper adds. Of course most are just selling houses so you have that photo. It's a little bonus, but I'm sure everyone brings something to those realtor groups. But anyway, there are a few farms that come up and some isolated and remote lots that have camps on them. Nice to have aerials of them. There is one lot I've seen on the web stuck dab into the middle of Fundy National Park. They have a huge price on the camp or lodge, but it is a big outfit with 150 acres of woods not timbered. Many of these places are foreign owned, and some may be sold off by timber companies as well. I'm sure that's the same anywhere in US or Canada.

Timber here is property, but even the judges in court don't know how to value it. Almost impossible to convict a timber thief, and they know it. Funny, if i see someone steel granny's wallet you can get convicted over $20. But, if I see someone steeling my timber, well, good luck.

[Ron Scott]

A number of consulting foresters here are also realtors and have land sales as part of their business. That's were they make a lot of their money. Sometimes I see it as a conflict of interest.

[WDH]

It is the same down here.  Most consultants have a real estate liscense.  The economic downturn has dealt them a heavy blow.  Some have folded. 

[Ron Wenrich]

We have a few consultants that also buy veneer logs, even off of jobs they mark.  I see that as a larger conflict of interest, but others see no problem with it.

[Ron Scott]

Yes, there gets to be a question of ethics with some and I don't condon to some of their practices. There gets to be a conflict with practicing "good forestry" by some, especially now with the woods business being as poor as it is.

[logwalker]

This reminded me of this old thread, where I had become so jaded from hearing and seeing so many over estimations of what a property owner had. I learned to never assume after this one.

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,4567.0.html

Jeff, I went back and read your original posting. I was just wondering how you prepared your crow or did you eat it raw?     

[SwampDonkey]

We have a few consultants that also buy veneer logs, even off of jobs they mark. 

Sure begs the question, who are they working for? The owner or the mill? I suppose you run a fine line in some circumstances that lead to either eating and paying the light bills or having an empty fridge.  Still, it doesn't make it any easier to except from the outside looking in.

I'm wondering though, is the guy marketing to the best value or his best buddy or boss at that mill? Seems to me the consultant would want the best price, if we assume he knows the markets well enough. Trouble is, I think a good many don't, and they aren't doing the "leg work". In my situation up here everyone knows the markets if they care to, just takes a visit or a phone call to the local marketing board. They are working for woodlot owners, loggers, truckers, anyone dealing in private wood sales.

I've read about more than one person dealing with a consultant that didn't know his markets well enough.

[Faron]

I once had a doctor send me a 48" diameter log.    It was, of course, about 15 inches.  He was a bright guy, and a fantastic woodworker, but boy he got that wrong.  Thing was, I had to call him and make sure the contractor hadn't pulled a fast one on him.

[tonich]

Sometimes I see it as a conflict of interest.

I see that as a larger conflict of interest, but others see no problem with it.

Yes, there gets to be a question of ethics with some and I don't condon to some of their practices.

Agree! Sure, one is either a Forester or Realtor. Not both of them at the same time.  

[KyMasterLogger]

when i get the calls about a "whatever" diameter tree from the landowner, i usually divide their measurement by 3.14.  although there has been a few times when the owner knew what they were talking about, and really did have a 4 or 5 foot diameter tree. reguardless of what they tell me, i always go look for myself.

[chucker]

  !!!! rule of 3 (three)get you real close hey....

[rocksnstumps]

So an apple pie 1 ft in radius is really two pies? YUMM!