St. Paul daily globe., 1888-05-13
EACH MAN EATS A BUSHEL.
The Quantity of Salt Used Annually in
This Country.
WHERE SALT CAN BE FOUND.
10000, 900 Blu. Consumed at Profit of
s5,000,000 to the Salt Kings and
$1,000, 900 to the Dealers.

There are twenty-three states and ter
ritorieS under the American eagles
wings in which you can find salt wells.
The principal salt centers are Syracuse,
N. Y. the Saginaw valley, Mich, and
the Kanawha valley, in Michigan.
If calculations amount to anything
there is no danger of scarcity of the
saline article, for a famous statistician
has declared that if all the salt in the
ocean were piled together it would make
a bulk equal to 30,000,000 cubic miles.
He never saw all this salt, but he says
it is there, and all that need be done is
to get it ashore.
1t is said on the best authority that
30,000,000 bushels are consumed in this
country. The average American gets
away with fifty pounds of salt every
year. The quantity taken at a time is
so small that person hardly notices it,
but years consumption of salt by one
person is almost a bushel.
An Englishman gets along on twenty
two pounds year, and in France an
ordinary man swallows eighteen pounds
between New Years day and Decem-
ger 81.
In and around Syracuse about 6,OOO,-
600 bushels, or One-ffth of all the salt
used in the United States, are produced.
AS high as 100000 bushels have been
drawn from the Syracuse wells in year.
The state sells the brine to company
which pays it a royalty of l cent a
buShel. The tax used to be cents a
buShel.
a large proportion of the 10000, 900
bushels of salt consumed by the Ameri-
Gag people comes from Liverpool. 1t is
shipped to this country as ballast and is
sold for mere song to dealers, who
make big money out of it. There is
very little ri SIX in the business.
The Ashton brand is the most popu-
lar. The coarser quality, which is used
for manufacturing purposes, comes
from the West Indies, Turks Island in
particular.
The salt industry is practically a
monopoly wherever it is carried on, Of
late years great salt wells have been
tapped in the Saginaw valley. Michigan.
and they are owned by a few corpora
tiOns, which are making money as fast
as they can get salt on the surface. Saw
mills are run in connection with MANY
salt works in the valley because the
odds and ends around the mills can be
used for fuel in running the salt wells.
In Italy, Spain and Switzerland the gov
v.
Salt costs the salt kings about one
twelfth of a cent per pound, and they
get an average of fOur-tenthS for it.
Before salt reaches the consumer it
passes through the hands of the i'm
porter or manufacturer, the wholesale
dealer and the retailer, each of whom
geStS a profit which is small in the unit
but large in the aggregate.
Salt for general use is put up in one,
two and three pound bags. The retailer
buys and sells it at the following rates:
buying Selling
price. price.
One pound bag -. ............112c 2c
Two pound bag. ag.............21 213c Sc
Three pound bag ag................3l2c 5c
1t is estimated that 100000 pounds of
salt are used daily by the families of
New York. Nearly twice as much more
is used for manufacturing, packing and
preserving and restaurant and other
purposes. All this is sold at an average
profit of 4 cent per pound, OF about
$1,000 per day, or gross annual profit
of nearly 100000 above the original
cost.
Salt is sold by so many people that
outside the producers and wholesale
dealers very few make large aggregate
profit. Nor is it much of an expense to
consumers, as a pound bag will last
some families week.
In restaurants, ice-cream establish
ments and hotels from one to fifty
pounds are used daily. Restaurant
keepers, dairy owners buy common
grade of salt for Sl.75 per 300 pounds.
The Syracuse salt companies are very
wealthy. Their expenses are light,
wages being very low, and the profits
are large. The salt workers average
S1.25, and they live in novels which are
eyesores to passengers on the railroads
centering in Syracuse.
Exact figures on salt are impossible to
get at, but James H. Allen, gentlemen
who has given the subject some atten-
ton, says that the 3O,OOO,OO0 bushels
consumed annually in America nets a
profit of s5,O00,O00 to the salt kings and
81 100000 to the wholesale and retail
dealers in the article.