Pulled this off of a woodworkers bullitan board
DD

Question: how does one estimate the height of a standing
> tree?
>

Hi Paul,

One of the oldest methods is to compare the length of its
shadow to the shadow of an object of
known height. This assumes that you can see all of the
tree's shadow and that it is on fairly level
ground.

Stand a 12" ruler up on the ground and measure its shadow.
This measurement will be used as a
factor in solving the height of the tree.

Measure the tree's shadow and divide that length (in feet)
by the length of the ruler's shadow (also in
feet).

For instance... the ruler's shadow was 9" (3/4 foot) long
and the tree's shadow is 40' long. 40 / .75 =
53'. The tree is around 53' high.

If the ruler's shadow was 15" (1.25 feet) and the tree's
shadow was 40', then the formula is 40 /
1.25 = 32'. The tree is around 32' tall.

Of course this won't work in a forest of trees. :-) There's
another way to do this when you can't see
all of the shadow. It involves holding the ruler at arms
length and then slowly moving it toward you
until the ends cover the line of sight from your eye to the
top and bottom of the tree. You then have
to measure the distance from the ruler to your eye, and from
your eye to the tree. You can then do a
scale drawing using those ratios and angles to estimate the
height of the tree.

Another way is to stand a 10' pole up against the tree, step
back and estimate how many of them
you could stack on one another before you got to the top.

Sorry this was so long.

Hope it helped.

Loren