ENTS,
Well, it is me, finally back into circulation. As a post-operative gift to myself, I've ordered a Nikon Forestry 550. A new forester acquaintance from New Hampshire asked my opinion of the instrument, so I feel duty bound to respond to him with a real evaluation. I currently own a Nikon Prostaff 550 as well as a Nikon Prostaff 440, but the Forestry 550 promises to be a poor man's competitor to my LaserTech TruPuse 200. The Forestry 550 is actually a hypsometer as opposed to just a rangefinder. When the 550 arrives, naturally I'll give a full report on it to the list. I hope to resume the presentation of the problem set for the list. I think I left off at #18 before my operation. If anyone wants a particular problem type solved, please let me know. The purpose of developing the problem set is to illustrate the solution to a wide range of tree measurement problems including the most basic to our membership. Spreadsheet solutions are provided for the computational intensive problems. This is your opportunity to speak up. Any problem type, no matter how basic, just ask, and you shall receive. Much of my time over the next several months will be spent completing the draft of Dendromorphometry - The Art and Science of Measuring Trees in the Field. For our new members who aren't aware, 5 of us (Dr. Lee Frelich, Dr. Don Bragg, Dr. Robert Van Pelt, Will Blozan, and myself) have undertaken the mission of developing tree-based mensuration as a formal discipline. We now have plenty of material and the time is right for the book. I'll give little progress reports along the way to completing the draft. As a final message to the membership, our numbers now stand at 328. I can remember a time when I wasn't sure we'd ever get much above 75, but kindred spirits have been finding us in increasing numbers. It has been soul satisfying to Will and I to watch ENTS become well established and increasingly recognized as THE tree measuring organization in the U.S. BTW, before I forget, we will be having a major ENTS rendezvous and old-growth forest conference in Oct here in western Massachusetts. Gary Beluzo and I will get cracking on the planning soon and keep the list fully informed. Bob --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
