I plot metes and bounds by hand using a protractor and a scale. I have developed a gridded sheet that I use for this purpose and it works quite well. Its scale is one inch = fifty poles. I can plot most tracts in less than half an hour. I did a big one a couple of weeks ago - 1470 acres - and it took a while longer. And a BIG sheet of paper! Jean is correct in stating that landmarks change drastically over the decades. Roads, riverbeds, cultivated or forested areas are rarely the same as they were 150-200 years ago. Yet some are sufficiently prominent that they are still around. Moyer's Gap is one such. It was named on an old land deed and enabled me to locate precisely where my 4g-grandather had lived. Fryers Hill is another feature mentioned on old land deeds and still there today, as is Chesnut Woods - both in Pendleton County. Bill Rexroad Hutchinson, Kansas