Owing to the great abundance of timber, the meager 
shipping and marketing facilities, and the desire for 
cleared land, the forests were not valued as they should 
have been. 
The History of Local (log mm) Timber Prices. 
Statistics show that the prices for all classes of 
lumber are increasing rapidly. In this connection, it 
is interesting to note the advance in local "log run" 
timber prices for a series of decades (1843 - 1908) or 
since shipping facilities and new markets influenced the 
demand for forest products. The following Table I and 
its accompanying Ghart I show the prices for "log run" 
grade of timber for a series of years in Tompkins County. 
They are the averages obtained from a number of sets of 
figures taken from old books in possession of some of the 
oldest lumbermen in Tompkins County and are of value in 
that they are representative of local conditions. 
These figures are interesting not only as they show 
the gradual increase in the price of timber in a local 
section, but they also show, to some extent at least, the 
tendency to make use of lower grades of timber such as ; 
chestnut, hard maple, elm, birch and beech, as the better 
grades become scarce or are exhausted. 
