The practice of high-grading can be traced back to the early days of the California gold rush, when miners would sneak into claims belonging to others and steal the most valuable pieces of ore. The practice of high-grading remains essentially unchanged today. An individual or corporation will enter an area and selectively mine or harvest only the most valuable specimens, before moving on to a new area. High-grading is most prevalent in the mining and timber industries. It is not uncommon to walk into a forest, particularly an old-growth forest, and find the oldest and finest specimens marked for harvesting.

See Also

Forest Management; Strip Mining