The salt works of the Confederate States.
The important question of the supply of salt in the Confederate States, and its manufacture, now occupies the minds of the leading merchants of the South. The following article, written by one of the most prominent gentlemen of South Carolina, appears in the Charleston Courier, and will be found interesting, especially to the mercantile community:The North Americans are the greatest consumers of common salt in the world. More than one bushel to each inhabitant is the average of their individual consumption, when in Europe the same average does not reach a half a bushel. Hence, the repeal by the Congress of the old duty on foreign salt, and the welcome given to any new cargo of this vital article. According to reports of the Treasury, this importation of salt was about 13,000,000 of bushels during the year 1854-55, and during 1855-56 it has been 15,405, 864 bushels. In the following years, 17,000,000 of bushels have been imported, though the domestic production from the salt springs had increased progressively up to 12.000,000, either in Virginia, Pennsylvania, or the State of New York.
This domestic production is now supplying nearly two-fifths of the late Union; and, though unfit for provisions and fisheries, still it prevents the foreign salt from ruling the Northwestern market. Salt springs are also numerous in many of the Southern States, but generally under circumstances very unfavorable to the cheapness, abundance, and easy transportation of their products. Consequently these States ought to rely for their own consumption or trade with the West upon another element; that is to say, upon the sea brine, which is now to become the inexhaustible salt-basket of our Confederation.
The sea salt manufacture, when conducted properly under the evaporating forces of the wind and sun, not only produces the cheapest article, but the best and the only good one for curing meat and provisions. The western salt-packers are very well aware of its superiority, and no doubt can exist as to the sea salt being a great deal more available that the boiled and deliquescent article from Liverpool or from the North, since the use of the former has been made obligatory by law for curing the provisions of the army and navy.
This kind of salt, formed Turk's Island salt, is just the kind that I am to manufacture, in order to supply the public want, now increasing so rapidly. So that my enterprise is obviously grounded upon a domestic interest, and rather a national necessity, especially when considered in relation with the Confederate army and navy provisions.
So great is the necessity of such a manufacture, that the States aid has been given it in every part of the civilized world. Therefore, I am not to answer idle objections, especially this singular one, that England would not come to buy our cotton, if we do not receive her boiled salt. Indeed, England has a hundred other bulky articles to bring us instead of salt; for instance, iron rails, which then will reach us at a cheaper price, and will aid to build up the country.
In order to call the attention of enterprising citizens to the cheapest and most improved method of making salt, let us show some financial results of this industry, and how far superior it is to the past and present method practised in the United States. The salt works of Syracuse, in New York States. are the most extensive and noticeable in the New World. There, 6,000,000 bushels and more are yearly manufactured; 5,000,000 by boilers, and about 1,000,000 by solar evaporation.
When I went, near the close of 1854, to visit this splendid laboratory of human skill, I asked the producing price of the article. ‘"It varies in some places ten or twelve cents a bushel; in others, seven or eight."’ "Very well; I will take as your standard the minimum price, seven cents. Now, as it would take too long to give you my secret, I prefer to reason with your official reports. In the last report of 1854, (page 14,) Prof. Cook, appointed by Syracuse itself, tells you that about three-fourths of the evaporating power is lost in the actual process of making salt.--Then you will understand that by controlling all the evaporating force of the sun and winds, you could have, as we have in the South of France, three times more salt than is now made in your wooden vats, or the same quantity three times cheaper. Indeed, for the last twenty years the French sea salt, per 100 kilogrammes of 232 pounds (4 bushels,) costs eight or nine cents, or about two cents per bushel. This fact is of public notoriety. By some new improvements in salt works which I introduced in Italy in 1848, I have produced the bushel for only one and a half cent. from the brine of the Adriatic sea, which is six times weaker than yours, for it has only two and a half per cent. of salt, while yours has sixteen or eighteen per cent. Thus, in Syracuse in spite of the richness of the brine, the cost to the manufacturer per bushel is seven cents, when in France and Italy it is only two cents. Why so incredible a difference? Read once more the report of Prof. Cook: they lose three-fourths of their solar evaporation.
Another example of the cheapness of Southern European salt is given equally, not by me, but by American witnesses of the highest authority. In the Consular Returns of 1855-6. printed by order of Congress, (vol. 3, p. 107,) I found the following testimony of the exporting price of Cadiz salt: ‘"The average wholesale price,"’ says the American Consul, ‘"is 3 ½ cents per bushel."’
Three and a-half cents per bushel, what you paid on your wharves 25 or 30 cents, and what you will pay a great deal more for next year, by want of a cheap navigation! Now, between 3 ½ cents, exporting price of the Spanish salt, and 25 cents, price of its landing, make the balance, if you are money men and speculators. But for the statesmen, for the Legislatures of the Southern States, is another consideration; for Spain understands, too, the commercial importance of salt, and for this reason, any foreign vessel arriving in ballast at Cadiz, and loading cargoes of this merchandize, are exempt from payment of light-house, anchorage, and loading dues.--(Consular Returns, idem., P. 109,)
Unexpected advice for American consumers, and especially for the Southern men who are consuming only foreign salt! In the year 1854-55, Cadiz shipped to the United States 580,400 bushels of sea salt; and, in 1855-56, Spain, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, forwarded to the same American market, 880, 723 bushels; thus sharing, in a small portion, the profits of British salt traders, but understanding quite enough the great commercial policy as applied to this vital article.
Now, to come back to the salt works of New York State, every one understands that, with a method producing three times more salt, or the same quantity three times cheaper, we can easily produce, not only in Syracuse, but all along the Atlantic shores under the bright and glorious sun of the South, the bushel of salt for about two cents, instead of seven or a great deal more.
With a diminution of five cents per bushel, the total saving on six millions bushels manufactured in Syracuse would be yearly three hundred thousand dollars. But we have to apply this calculation to the selling price of foreign salt, exclusively consumed in the Southern States. I take twenty-two cents as the average price of this salt, and suppose the American production ready at two cents per bushel, to compete against it, with an economic superiority of twenty cents. What will be the result upon 17,000,000 bushels imported yearly into the United States? A total saving of $3,400,000--a handsome sum to be saved and invested in internal improvements.
As to South Carolina and Georgia, which are now consuming near 2,000,000 bushels of Liverpool salt, their yearly saving by domestic supply of the article will be about $400,000. Large and direct profit will, at the same time, derive to them from their new salt works near Charleston, or the entrance of Savannah river; for the merchandize made from the sea-brine, and by natural evaporation, has always taken the lead of the market as the best kind of salt for curing beef, pork, cheese, and other provisions which constitute the wealth of the Western farmers. The State of Tennessee will be certainly supplied in this way with the Atlantic salt from Georgia or South Carolina, instead of the Turk's Island salt, carried from New Orleans up the Mississippi river. New Orleans itself, which is now importing yearly more than 4,000,000 of bushels, will retain, by a domestic manufacture of the article, all the profits of the foreign producers, and will increase yearly the wealth of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, by saving an importing sum of about one million of dollars.
But these advantages are not to be compared to that of having indefinite quantities of salt at hand for agricultural purposes.--For manuring the cotton field, for instance, how many millions of bushels could be sold at four or five cents, as it is in France or Italy? To supply the unlimited quantity wanted by old and new planters, how many thousand acres of sickly and marshy land would be turned into healthy, evaporating fields, and rich crystallizing rooms, depositories of this vital article, now unrivalled by the cheapness of its production?
