Feedback on... SURVEYING

(Page 4 of 4)

November/December 1975
By the Mother Earth News editors 
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If I seem to be carping over small matters, it's because I feel strongly about keeping up high standards in my field. A crew I led ran a line for a ground control approach at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, and that survey would close within a foot in 200 miles. A lot more goes into such results than could be picked up from an article like Ms. Gelwick's. I realize that Aimee's instructions were intended for use by the landowner on his own place . . . but even at that level it's possible to be more accurate.

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As you'd probably expect, I don't think much of the method suggested by Dave Beiter in MOTHER NO. 35. I wouldn't even call it surveying . . . it's more like walking through the woods with a compass.

I've often seen work of this kind (including one effort—by a surveyor—which contained a single acre and followed the same line four times for a distance of 208.77 feet). Sometimes I've tried to go over a boundary laid out by crude methods, and returned after a weekend to find that the fellow who carried out the first run had tracked my lines through the woods and marked them with rags tied to trees.

Dave's work may be passable in Kentucky, but could make trouble even there. Property lines which cross themselves can mean that three or four people end up paying taxes on the same land . . . and all, of course, claim ownership. I wouldn't like to be in Mr. Beiter's shoes if his neighbors start suing him for bad surveys (which might happen, especially if strangers begin to settle in the area).

To sum up: It's true that a knowledge of surveying is very useful . . . but there's far more to the skill than Aimee and Dave suggest, and the layman who wants to learn the basics had better find an expert to teach him.

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