TRAlsS^PORTATIO^' AXD MARKETING 239 



wagons, sometimes over a road of poles on stringers 

 a quarter of a mile long without dirt or gravel on 

 top. This was corduroy road, long to be remembered 

 by anyone who has ever ridden over such a thing 

 in a wagon without springs." ^ 



These difficult conditions in respect to transpor- 

 tation reacted adversely on market conditions and 

 the price of the products of the pioneer farms. In 

 early Eaton County, meat sold at four cents a pound 

 and eggs at three cents a dozen. An Ottawa County 

 reminiscencer quotes the local price of wheat as fifty 

 to sixty cents a bushel, of pork as $2.50 to $3 a liun- 

 dredweight, and of flour as $2.50 to $3 a barrel. 

 In his home town the price of horses was $30, of 

 cows, $8, of oxen, $30. This reacted on land values, 

 which here ran at $4 an acre in addition to the 

 government price of $1.25. The assessed valuation 

 of four townships in this county is stated to have 

 been $19,081." At Vermontville, potatoes are said 

 to have sold for a shilling a bushel in 1839. Since 

 whatever was produced before the advent of the rail- 

 road must be consumed in the locality, there was 

 likely to be a surplus that must be disposed of at 

 prices which now seem absurdly low. It was other- 

 wise in the northern peninsuUi where much of the 

 population was engaged in mining and lumbering, 

 and required largo importations of food-stuffs and 

 manufactured articles to satisfy the local require- 

 ments. Beef came hither on the hoof on shipboard, 



'Ihid.. XXXTT, 246. 



2 "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," IX, 264. 



