6th. Universally sold by weight, allowing fifty pounds to the bushel; the measured bushel will weigh from seventy to eighty pounds. [SENATE. tity of salt, per head, to each kind of stock, will depend on the food with which they are supplied. If with grain, less; if with herbs, more salt. I am sure, if the price of 7th. When the salt is weighed out of the barrel, it sel- salt be reduced, the farmers in this section of the country dom holds out, and frequently loses from five to twenty would give their stock a better supply, and that their impounds. We may add, that, however honestly it may provement would be in proportion to the increased quanhave been put up at the works, it is generally brought tity given. To err, by an excess, is not to be appredown in open boats, subject to the winter rains, which hended. damage it more or less; and we know of but one of his agents who sells it any other way than by the marked weight. 8th. Salt is sold for nothing else but ready money. 9th. Salt is sold, high or low, according to competition. The Kenhawa ground alum and Liverpool are brought in but sparingly, which is the only competition. 10th. We believe that White realizes great gains. We are sustained in this opinion, from his carrying it by land twenty-five or thirty miles farther, where he meets with competition, and selling it for less than he does here. 11th. Wholly unfit. To the fifteenth query I will remark, that the use of salt, in the preservation of hay, is well expended. And if new mowed hay, or clover, or other grasses, be packed, a layer of hay, and a layer of straw, either wheat, oats, or rye, and a good supply of salt to each layer be added, you make the best of food for horses and cattle. I approve, very highly, your intention to repeal, if you can, the salt tax, totally and promptly. In this, and all efforts of your useful life, I wish you success. Communication from General William Hall, of Sumner county, Tennessee, dated December 8, 1830. I received your "queries on the state of the salt trade in the Western States," in due time; and have delayed answering them, only that I might obtain all the informa tion within my reach necessary to a correct reply. The queries will be answered in the order in which they are proposed, Nos. 1, 2, &c., answering to the corresponding numbers in the queries. a 12th. It will not be received for either. 13th. We can give no correct answer. 14th. It is indispensable for stock of all kinds. It is thought they require more in the Western States than maritime States, owing, probably, to the absence of the sea breeze, and vapor impregnated with salt coming from the sea, and alighting on the vegetable matter. Stock of all kinds should be salted twice a week; but, owing to the high 1. The salt made at the Kenhawa works, from whence price of salt, the stock are probably not salted more than large portion of the supply for this State, Ohio, Ken. once in two weeks, on an average. From the best ac- tucky, Indiana, and Illinois, is obtained, is monopolized. counts, three thousand barrels of salt are consumed an- 2. The monopolists have depots and agents in the difnually in Madison county, averaging about six bushels (of ferent States, supplied by them, who are required to acfifty pounds) to the barrel. The population being about count quarterly for sales, which are made for cash, and at twenty-seven thousand, gives us an average of thirty-three prices fixed by the monopolists. pounds and one-third to each person. Were those heavy duties taken off, the consumption would be much greater. 15th. Salt is thought to be useful in preserving hay, fodder, and clover; each will keep well if sprinkled over with it, though not thoroughly cured when put up. Moreover, our pork is often spoiled from the want of a sufficiency of salt to pack it up in, which we cannot obtain on account of the high price. Thousands, and tens of thousands of pounds are often lost from that circumstance alone. Alum salt would be an immense saving to North Alabama, in that one particular. Resolved, therefore, unanimously, That the delegation from this State, as well as those of our sister States, have our unfeigned thanks for their exertions and co-operation the last session of Congress, with Mr. Benton, in endeavoring to repeal the duty on salt; and that we request our delegation to use their utmost to effect the repeal of a tax so burdensome to us, and of no ultimate advantage to any State. Communication from Colonel F. W. Burton, formerly of North Carolina, now of Murfreesborough, Tennessee, dated December 8, 1830. 3. The prices of domestic and foreign salt vary from seventy to one hundred cents per bushel of fifty pounds. Freight from New Orleans may be had at fifty cents per hundred pounds. 4. Answered in No. 2. 5. I have not been able to obtain any satisfactory information as to this query. 6. Salt is sold in this State, and throughout the Western country, by weight. The measured bushel weighs from twenty to twenty-five pounds more than the weighed bushel. 7. An allowance is made for the weight of the barrel, though none for the loss of salt in drying. 8. Is answered, in part, previously. The price is higher since the monopoly. 9. The price of salt is regulated by the quantity in market. The quantity of foreign, or other domestic salt, brought to this market, is inconsiderable. 10. The monopolists realize great gains. 11. Although Kenhawa salt is very superior to any other domestic salt brought to this market, I am informed that nearly all the beef and pork from the Western country is repacked in foreign salt, either for shipment, or for the army or navy. 12. See No. 11. 13. I am not informed as to the price of repacking beef or pork which has been put up in domestic salt. Your favor of July last, propounding fifteen queries on the state of the salt trade in the Western States, was received in due time. To the thirteen first of these queries, I am sure that the commercial gentlemen of the country can render a much more correct and satisfactory answer 14. The necessity and advantage of giving salt to stock than I can. of every kind is universally admitted. It is indispensable To the fourteenth I will observe, that salt is indispen- in the Western States, and ought to be given to all kinds sably necessary to the good condition of horses, horned of stock about once a week, and to each head of horses cattle, sheep, and hogs, in the Western States. It is bene- or cattle from two to four ounces at a time, and less than ficial in the maritime States likewise, and the more so as you recede from the seaboard. The watery constituent parts of the atmosphere on the seaboard take with them salt, which is inhaled by these animals, and thereby they 15. The use and advantage of salt in preserving of hay, are supplied with that salt which is necessary for the health- fodder, and clover, is admitted by all practical farmers, ful condition of all animals, both granivorous and herbu- although but few avail themselves of the advantage, in conlent, and to some of those that are carnivorous. The quan-sequence of the scarcity and high price of salt. VOL. VII.-9 half that quantity to sheep or hogs, though farmers in this section are prevented from giving their stock the necessary quantum of salt, owing to the high price of the article. SENATE.] Duty on Alum Salt. [FEB. 8, 1831. Communication from Lieutenant Governor Breathitt, of Ken- manufacturers furnish exclusively the supply of that article tucky, dated Russellville, Nov. 16, 1830. My information will not enable me to answer your favor on the state of the salt trade in detail. no for the valley of the Wabash; and that none is permitted to be vended by others, so far as can be prevented by them; and that those agents are regulated by fixed prices, under which they may not sell, but can raise the price in proporIt is also believed that a scarcity of tion to the demand. From the general opinion on the subject, there is no doubt there was, during the last year, an extensive salt monopoly supplied from the Kenhawa works. Depots salt is frequently occasioned by the inadequacy of the mawere had principally on the watercourses for salt, where nufactories to produce sufficient supplies, or that those it was vended by their agents, sometimes on a credit of monopolists hoard it up for the purpose of extorting exorfour or six months. Whether it continues the present bitant prices; neither of which causes would operate to season, I am not advised. Those depots extended to Ten- produce the scarcity and high price so oppressive to the nessee. Sales were made for money. There is but little West, was the salt trade left open to the natural course of foreign salt brought into this neighborhood: I cannot, competition. therefore, state the difference in price. This neighbor. The monopoly of the salt trade is notorious, and is one hood is supplied from the Illinois saline, and the Kenhawa of the greatest grievances to be complained of in the West; salt from the latter is preferred to preserve meat. It is and it is believed that the unrestricted importation of alum not so white and clean as that from the saline. It is usually salt is, perhaps, the only method which can be adopted sold by weight-50 lbs. to the bushel, when sold by the effectually to break it down, unless Congress should think barrel. The tare of the barrel is taken off, and the salt is proper to declare it a criminal offence to attempt a monogenerally weighed at the time of sale. It is, however, poly of any article of necessary consumption, as the British sometimes otherwise. About this time last year, the com- Parliament has done, and render such offence punishable mon price, at this place, was one dollar per bushel; now, by fine and imprisonment, which even would not be so it may be purchased at seventy-five cents. There is effectual. doubt that salt is indispensable for the use of stock, and It will not be disputed but that a supply of alum salt is particularly in this country. Much stock has been raised necessary in the West, even if the domestic salt was obupon the grazing the forest affords, and if they are fur- tainable unembarrassed by monopoly, from its superior nished plentifully with salt, they are fat. Hence the ne- qualities in the preservation of beef and pork in a southern cessity of its being as cheap as possible, and because, also, market, where we must of necessity send our surplus of of its universal use by all. I was pleased at the reduction those articles. It is believed by stock raisers, that a much of the duties last session on coffee, tea, molasses, and salt. larger quantity of salt is necessary for stock in the WestI should be pleased, however, to see the duties retained on ern than in the Atlantic States, owing, doubtless, to the manufactured articles, so that our own manufactories may nature of the food on which they are subsisted, and the enter into competition with foreign ones, and make a rea- diseases to which they are subject. sonable profit. I would not have them to have unreason- I should have been much gratified to have been able to able profit: then it would be a tax upon one portion for furnish you information on all the points on which you rethe benefit of the other. The point to stop at is one of quest it, and should have done it most cheerfully had I difficulty, and requires great experience and much re-been in possession of it. Not doubting, however, but that the method you have taken will elicit it in abundance, I shall, therefore, rest satisfied, anxiously desiring the successful result of your efforts to repeal the salt tax entirely, concurring with you in opinion that it is the best service that can be rendered to the West next to the graduation of the price of public lands: in both of which great Westof the West most ardently wishing you success. ern measures, you have the concurrence of a vast majority search. I should be pleased to hear from you occasionally. Communication from General Tipton, of Indiana, duted Statement of the Hon. Mr. Lyon, of Kentucky. That, being a member of a mercantile house which received a quantity of salt from the Kenhawa Salt Company, to sell on commission, in the years 1826-7, with instructions to sell at the original mark or lick weight, finding many of the barrels greatly deficient in weight, varying from 10 to 20 per cent., they reweighed, and sold a quantity at the real weight; that, when the agent of the comYour printed letter of July last has been duly received, pany came on, he was dissatisfied, and said it was their custom to sell elsewhere at the original mark, and that it and I have made strict inquiry of merchants, and other must be so sold there, which they refused to do. The gentlemen of intelligence of this vicinity, in relation to the agency, and the salt on hand, were transferred to other salt monopoly. From facts collected from them, and some hands; and that he has great reason to believe the neces- that there is, and has been for years, a monopoly of that within my own knowledge, I have no hesitation in saying sities of the people, in many instances, compelled them to article, to the great injury of the poorer class of the peopurchase the deficient barrels at their marked weight. Also, that, being in company with the Hon. Mr. Benton, ple of Indiana. of the Senate, in ascending the Ohio from Cincinnati, last Ohio and the Wabash rivers, at from thirty to forty miles Deposits for the sale of salt are established along the fall, on board the steamboat Emigrant, said to belong to, from each other, by monopolists from Kenhawa, in Virgiand be in the employ of, the Kenhawa Salt Company, nia, and from Kentucky. One agent of these monopolists which was towing a keel-boat to Maysville, Kentucky, is at this village; another at Lafayette, forty miles below, loaded with alum or foreign salt, and delivered there for the purpose of salting pork in that part of Kentucky. Feb. 1830. Communication from General Milroy, of Delphi, Indiana, dated Nov. 25, 1830. I received your letter requesting information relative to the salt trade of this country. My limited acquaintance with mercantile business will enable me to say but little from my own knowledge on the subject. I can say, how ever, that the belief is universal, and uncontradicted in this part of the country, that agents employed by the salt who rise or fall in their prices according to the compet tion they meet, and, by this means, oppress the poor, and amass wealth to themselves to a very large amount per annum. The salt manufactured at the wells at Kenhawa, and in Kentucky, will not preserve pork in the Southern climate. In the winter of 1822 I descended the rivers to New Orleans, with a quantity of pork put up with salt made at the wells of these monopolists. Soon after my arrival at New Orleans, I was compelled to purchase Turk's Island salt, and repack my pork; thereby incurring an expense of one hundred and fifty dollars. FEB. 8, 1831.] Duty on Alum Salt. [SENATE. I have no doubt that it would be of great benefit to In-salt was always repacked at New Orleans, when sent to diana to repeal the law levying a duty on foreign salt. Communication from J. G. Read, Esq. member of the Senate in the State of Indiana, dated Washington County, Nov. 30, 1830. I received yours of July last, and am sorry that it is not in my power to give you a more full account of the subject matter therein contained. Relative to the act of last winter reducing the duty on salt, I have only to say that, in this section, it met with almost universal satisfaction, and a great anxiety is expressed that the entire duty be taken off this winter. I now proceed to answer, in a brief and concise manner, a few of the queries propounded by you. 1st. "Whether the trade," &c.--It is, but at what works particularly I do not know. The monopoly extends throughout this State, and, I am informed, generally throughout the Western States. 3d. "The price," &c. --Domestic salt is $1 25; foreign $150. The freight from New Orleans is one dollar per hundred. 4th. "Whether," &c.--They have; the depots are generally from twenty to thirty miles. 6th. Whether salt," &c.--It is sold by weight, 50 lbs. to the bushel; a weighed bushel will not measure more than three pecks. a market beyond that place, at an expense of one dollar per barrel, and sometimes with a considerable deduction from the quantity, from the rejection of tainted pieces. And, indeed, after its arrival at the foreign market, it brought a much less price than the pork of the Atlantic States, which had been cured with sea salt. From these facts, it must be evident, that, in proportion to the abundance and the cheapness of sea salt in the city of Cincinnati, the price of pork must, in a great measure, be governed, and the price in that great mart governs it in the surrounding States. In the year 1826 or '7, the pork market opened in Cinlantic cities, finding a great deficiency of sea salt, and that cinnati tolerably well; but the pork dealers from the Atat a very high price, refused to purchase, and the article fell to $2 and $2 50 per hundred. The objection, in the Western country, that has been urged against abolishing or reducing the duty on salt, is, the apprehension that it may destroy the Western manufactories of that article. Against the probability of this occurrence is the fact of the advance of price in the domestic article of from seventy-five to one hundred per centum in the course of six or seven years. I am not able to say what is the cost of manufacturing the domestic article at the several works in the Western country. I have understood, and believe, that from thirty to thirty-five cents was considered a fair price for it in Cincinnati some years ago. It is not now sold lower than fifty cents; and, for some time in December last, sixty-two and a half cents per bushel of 50 lbs. was charged for it. 8th. Whether," &c.-They sell only for cash in hand. The price is higher since the monopoly. 9th. "Do the," &c.--I do not know, but presume they do. Foreign salt competes with them. 11th. Whether," &c.--It is not. I will add the further fact against the successful compe12th. "The expense,' " &c.-Some few years ago, I tition of the imported with the Western salt for domestic had a number of barrels repacked in New Orleans, which purposes, for which the latter is equally good with the had been put up in domestic salt: it cost me $1 12 per former, that the salting of pork commencing in the bebarrel, and 124 cents for each hoop that was furnished in ginning of December, the salt must be imported in the the place of those that got broken in the process. I pre-spring which is intended to supply the market-the usualsume the price is nearly the same yet. ly low state of the rivers in the summer and fall prevent14th. The necessity," &c.-Salt to stock in this coun- ing the navigation in these seasons. The investment of try is of great importance; without it, but few could be money, therefore, by the merchant in the article must be raised. It prevents many disorders, &c.; and many farm-made at least six months before he can effect a sale of it. ers here are prevented, from the high price and scarcity of salt, to give them what they need. 66 15th. "The use," &c.--It is of great use. It is found to be an advantage of at least 50 per cent. to hay, particularly prairie hay, that is of little or no use without salt, is found to be almost equal to fodder when properly put up in salt. Communication from Gen. W. H. Harrison, of Ohio, dated I have always supposed, and every year's experience confirms me in the opinion, that the duty on salt (at least the high rate of duty lately paid) was injurious to the interest of agriculture in that part of the Western country in which I reside. One of our staples, and the one which I believe yields the most profit to the farmer, is pork. The increase of its manufacture (if I may so call it, meaning the preparation of it in barrels for exportation) is altogether astonishing. It is believed that, in Cincinnati alone, there were slaughtered and packed this year one hundred thousand hogs, averaging at least six dollars, and thus scattering $600,000 amongst the farmers. It is ascertained, beyond contradiction, that sea salt is necessary to prevent its spoiling in its passage through the hot climate of the Mississippi, in its course to a foreign market, or to our own Atlantic ports. In both of these, our pork, of late years, has acquired a very high character. This is due to the experience which has been acquired in packing, and to the exclusive use, when it can be procured, of sea salt. Before that article was brought to Cincinnati by the steamboats, the pork which was prepared with the Western - Communication from John C. Webb, Esq. of Missouri, dated Cape Girardeau, county of Jackson, November 24, To the first query I know but little of myself further than this: there are some merchants amongst us that have been applied to for salt, and proposed trade in payment; their reply was, they were selling on commission, and could take nothing else but money for it. The second query I know nothing about. 3d. The price of domestic salt in Jackson, varies from one dollar to one dollar twenty-five cents per fifty pounds, and that weighed with old rusty steelyards that will not preponderate, for eight or ten pounds. Foreign salt is never lower than one dollar and twenty-five cents per fifty pounds. Domestic, by the barrel, varies from seventyfive to eighty-seven and a half cents; foreign ditto, one dollar per fifty pounds by the sack, after paying for the weight of the sack, and then adding fifty cents more for the sack. The common freightage from New Orleans to the Cape, from seventy-five cents to one dollar per hundred. 4th. As to this query I know nothing of myself. 6th. This query I have answered as to the weight per SENATE.] Duty on Alum Salt. [FEB. 8, 1831. bushel, only the measured bushel, which, as near as I can S. BARBOUR, of Virginia,] for the express purpose of say pointed, domestic salt will weigh from sixty-five to seventy, foreign ditto, from seventy-five to eighty-five. 7th. In selling by the barrel, thirty pounds is allowed for the barrel; if you take it by the nominal quantity, you pay seventy-five cents; but if you have it weighed, eightyseven and a half cents is most common. 8th. As to the manner of selling, it is for money alone, and that in hand; no produce nor credit in the case will answer. 9th. It appears that there is no competition here; when there is a scarcity it is sure to rise, and plenty never brings it down lower than the above stated prices. 10th. This query I cannot answer. 11th. As to domestic salt they will not receive beef or pork pickled with it, and it does not answer for butter for exportation. 12th. Beef nor pork will not be received in New Orleans if put up in common salt. 13th. If any does go down put up in common salt, it has to be repacked with one bushel of alum salt for each barrel. enabling the agent to answer it before that committee, but who had not availed himself of that opportunity. Statement of a citizen of Kenhawa, furnished as anonymous, that he may not compromise his tranquillity, but with the names of the payers and receivers in the dead well' system; the names being now omitted, as it is not the object of Mr. B. to interfere with individuals, but to expose a system. "Dead wells are now common at the Kenhawa salines, and are giving to the place a dilapidated and melancholy appearance, and doing a real injury to the country. There are many of these dead wells, and monopolizers pay the owner for letting them remain idle. and * * dig a well on his land; about $1,500 per annum for another. Many others receive less or greater sums upon the same terms. Besides dead wells, there are also unborn wells, whose owners are paid for not letting them be dug. I know several of this kind. receives $1,250 per annum not to 14th. I have long experienced the advantage of giving * receives $1,500 annually salt to stock of every kind; if I am working my horses, and receives $2,500 per annum they fail eating, give them salt or salt and water to drink; in the same way; and I have no doubt, many others, and I discover it immediately restores them to their appetite, it is all a thing of notoriety in the neighborhood. Before and they perform their labor much better. Through the the monopoly, the price of salt was about a shilling a winter I salt them twice a week, and through the working bushel, as it is called, and as often under as above that season ever other day. I find it necessary to salt cattle price, and it could be got for any kind of trade; since the through the winter once a week, they eat their rough monopoly, it is fifty cents cash, and none will be sold for food much better, and look better in the spring; and when retail to the people of the States, except to those who will the grass and herbs begin to put up, I find it necessary to salt every other day, and then through the summer twice a week, and have always noticed, if I neglected salting one week, my milch cows failed of their milk. I have some neighbors that seldom salt their stock at all, and I take notice that my cattle look as well in the spring as theirs do in the fall. Their reason for not salting they say is, that salt is so dear. Sheep and hogs require salt at any rate once a week through the summer; hogs put up fatten much better by being well salted. bind themselves to avoid competition with the monopolizers at their depots. The company that monopolize the works are the chief shippers, and through their agents retail to the people in most of the Western States, fixing their own price, their own weight, and the quantity which each State is to have, except so far as they are interfered with by alum salt from New Orleans." After reading, or referring to the extracts of evidence, taken before the Committee of the British House of Commons on the salt duties, and reading or stating the com15th. The advantage of salt for damaged hay I know is munications received by himself from citizens of the Westgreat. I have seen hay that looked like it was almost en-ern States, Mr. BENTON proceeded to make copious and tirely spoiled, and when stacked up with salt, cattle eat it extended remarks upon the uses of salt in agriculture and clean, and looked well; but salt selling so high as it does, manufactures; the difference between the impure and inprevents us poor people from having it by us even for the ferior salt made by boiling well water, and the clean, pure use of our stock and pickling up our meat, as nothing but and crystallized salt made by the rays of the sun, in hot money will get it. Go to a merchant, and ask if he wants climates, out of the water of the sea; the variety of uses any kind of produce, if he says yes-well, I will bring it to which the well water salt was wholly unfit and inadeat such a day--I want some salt to pickle up my meat, for quate; and the cruel injustice, on the part of the Federal I have got no money-his reply is, my salt is a cash article; Government, of expelling the pure salt from the country I cannot sell it for produce. Well, I am obliged to have by an oppressive tax, which might otherwise be had both salt; if you will trust me a little while, I will pay you the cheap and abundant, for the purpose of compelling them money for it. His reply then is, I merely bring salt for to use the inferior salt at an enormous and unconscionable accommodation; I make nothing on it; I must have the price. money down, or otherwise, will reply, I am selling on commission, and am obliged to have the money. On these terms I have known men to do without salt until they had suffered considerably for want of that article, unless they could borrow of a neighbor. Honorable sir, if your interference in Congress can mitigate the matter, it will confer a very requisite favor on our neighborhood. 1. He remarked on the value of salt to stock, as proved by both the English and American testimony. It was proved that the health of all animals was preserved by it; and with this preservation of health, ensued all the advantages of increased growth and fattening, prolonged life, multiplied offspring; and superior flavor to the flesh, the milk, the butter, the cheese, the bacon, beef, and pork, which were made from them. In England, it was computed that the advantage to the stock from all these sources was 25 per cent. per annum. On one farm it was rated at about 333 per cent.; and the aggregate advantage, or rather the aggregate loss to the farmers for want of salt, was stated to exceed the annual amount of the tax, which was about 7,000,000 dollars. Mr. B., after reading or referring to these communications, which were given under the authors' names, stated that he had another of very material import which he would read to the Senate, but without the name. He had the less reluctance in doing this, because he had endeavored to give to the agent of the Kenhawa company, who had been in attendance upon the other House during the 2. He remarked on the necessity of sun-made salt for session, an opportunity to answer. He had communicated butter and cheese. If put up in common salt, the butter the statement to a member of the Committee on Manufac-soon became rancid, and sold at less than half the price of tures, whose name he was at liberty to mention, [Mr. J. alum salt butter at New Orleans and in the West Indies. FEB. 8, 1831.] Duty on Alum Salt. [SENATE. He attributed the general inferiority of American cheese for sale. Another disastrous consequence, but not so visito the impure salt which was used in making it; and ble to the passing eye, was the loss of all these articles for dwelt upon the articles of cheese and butter as sources of exportation. The exportation of soap and candles had wealth to the stock-raising States, if duly improved by the lately amounted to 912,000 dollars in the year; and of leause of pure salt. He said the exports of the last years ther, boots, shoes, and saddlery, to 450,000 dollars. These had reached the value of $177,000 per annum; which, exportations went from the Atlantic cities to the West Inthough considerable, was a trifle compared to the con- dies, and chiefly grew out of the gifts which the Western sumption in our towns, and the export to the Lower Mis- farmers made of their hides and tallow to the drovers. sissippi. He considered the farmers as losing the one-half of They were exportations which belonged to the West, not their whole sales of butter and cheese, by using artificial only because it produced the material out of which the salt, made by men, instead of using the natural crystallized manufactured articles were made, but it was the best place salt, made by nature. To the cows on dairy farms, it was for carrying on the manufactory of them on account of the proved in England, that half a bushel of salt per annum cheapness of provisions, and the facilities of exporting diwas necessary; and the milk, butter, and cheese, all were rect to the West Indies. richer and better flavored when that quantity, or more, was given. Common salt would do for the cows to lick; but alum salt was indispensable for butter and cheese that was to be long kept or exported. Mr. B. made a further illustration of the evils of driving beef cattle from the West, in its effect upon the internal navigation and domestic markets of the great valley. The Mississippi river was to the West what the Mediterranean 3. In the article of bacon he estimated the loss at near- sea was to the Romans; it is mare nostram-our sea--and ly one-half in using the fire-made salt. Such bacon would the steamboats and other boats upon it constitute our nanot sell for much more than half price in any of our mar-vigation. The building of these vessels gives employment ket towns, and could not be carried to the Southern cli- to a multitude of useful and respectable mechanics; creates mates, or exported, without danger of spoiling and be a demand for vast quantities of wood, iron, paints, and coming a total loss. Such bacon was often a drug in the glass; furniture of every description; daily supplies of promarket at New Orleans at two cents a pound, a mere re-visions; wood for fuel, now estimated at a million of dollars fuse article at that price, while the alum salt bacon was a per annum; and for an immense number of persons to naready sale at six or eight cents. vigate and manage the boats. The aggregate of all these 4. In pickled pork. For this purpose alum salt was in- expenditures connected with steamboat building and navidispensable. The artificial salt would answer no purpose. gation, was several millions of dollars per annum, and was The poisonous ingredients called slack and bittern, which the most profitable kind of expenditure, for it was carried to it contained, corrupted the pork in warm climates, and the very doors of the people, and delivered into their hands the soluble nature of the salt itself, by dissolving immedi- in their own houses. Having drawn the picture of the adately, brought all the pieces in contact, and made each vantages of steamboat navigation to the West, Mr. B. venturassist in destroying the other. The crystallized salt, besides being free from slack and bittern, is large in the grain, and so far insoluble that a layer of it remains for years between each piece of meat, and acting as a perpetual preservative. Mr. B. said that bacon might be made, after a fashion, with boiled salt; but pickled pork not at all. For that purpose, the sun made salt was a sine qua non. For want of this salt, the Western farmers had got into the general custom of making bacon, whereby they lost about one-third of the product of their hog stock; for the bacon dried and wasted near a third by the time it was sold, and would then sell for no more than pickled pork, which lost not an ounce in weight from the day it was put into the barrel till sold. A difference of one-third to be saved in the annual product of the hog stock, would be immense to the farmers; and this difference would be saved by the repeal of the duty on alum salt. ed to make the suggestion that they would be nearly doubled by substituting a change in the beef trade, from driving the cattle on the hoof to the Atlantic cities, to sending the beef pickled to New Orleans and the West Indies. Such a change would open a new and immense head for freight down the river, and a corresponding increase for freight back; for it was of the nature of exports and imports to emulate each other; it would produce diminished prices for under cargo, of which salt would be the chief; and a corresponding increase of every expenditure connected with the construction and navigation of steamboats. He then averred that this change, and the stupendous benefits resulting from it, depended solely and exclusively upon the free use of alum salt--upon the abolition of the duty upon that article--upon the simple and obvious process of permitting the Western people to use the salt according to their wants and wishes, which God had created for them 5. In pickled beef. For this purpose alum salt is abso- in all the islands of the Gulf of Mexico. And he ridiculed lutely indispensable. Beef could not be pickled without with contemptuous sarcasm the affected alarms of those it; and, therefore, to find a market, the beef cattle were who expressed the fear that there would not be salt enough driven off upon the hoof. Mr. B. pronounced it to be a if the domestic manufactories checked their operations. losing business, a most disadvantageous traffic, to any He said it was a fear that there would be a failure of suncountry to drive away its beef cattle to be sold on the shine and sea water. hoof. The immediate loss in that operation was nearly Having briefly touched upon the important uses of salt in one-half the value of the beef, and the whole loss of the agriculture, and especially for stock and provisions, Mr. hide, tallow, and offal; the consequential loss was, in the B. proceeded to notice the disadvantages under which the purchase of leather and manufactures of leather, and the farmers of the Western States labored with respect to that purchase of soap and candles, and also in the loss of lea- article. At the head of the list of these disadvantages, or ther, soap, and candles for exportation. Pickled beef in oppressions, as they might with greater propriety be callNew Orleans was usually from eight to twelve dollars a ed, stood the appalling and astounding fact, that the whole barrel, which was from four to six cents a pound. The salt trade of the West, so far as it depended upon the dofarmers of the West usually sell their cattle at from 1 to mestic manufactories, was one vast and cruel monopoly! 24 cents per pound; thus suffering a loss of nearly one-half The amazing fact was proved by a variety of testimony; on the beef; the hide and tallow, which is worth as much it was known to every Western Senator present; it was felt as the beef sells for at such rates, being thrown into the at home, in every department of agriculture, by all the bargain, and given away. The disastrous effect of this farmers of the West. The baleful effects of this horrid suicidal business was seen in every town in the West, monopoly were forcibly depicted by the witnesses whose where foreign hides from South America, foreign leather, communications he had read. Double price and scant boots, shoes, and saddlery, and foreign soap and candles, measure; the whole country districted, allowanced, and from Europe and the Atlantic States, were daily exhibited stinted; ready money exacted; wells rented from their |