page_title: Potash
section_title: History of production
hierarchical_section_title: Potash / History of production
caption_attribution_description: English: A covered hopper car owned by the now defunct company PotashCorp in a long Canadian Pacific manifest train passing through Bolton, Ontario on 5 March 2018.
context_page_description: Potash includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form. The name derives from pot ash, which refers to plant ashes soaked in water in a pot, the primary means of manufacturing the product before the industrial era. The word potassium is derived from potash.
  Potash is produced worldwide at amounts exceeding 90 million tonnes per year, mostly for use in fertilizer. Various types of fertilizer-potash constitute the single largest industrial use of the element potassium in the world. Potassium was first derived in 1807 by electrolysis of caustic potash.
context_section_description: Potash (especially potassium carbonate) has been used in bleaching textiles, making glass, ceramic, and making soap, since about AD 500. Potash was principally obtained by leaching the ashes of land and sea plants. Beginning in the 14th century potash was mined in Ethiopia. One of the world's largest deposits, 140 to 150 million tons, is located in the Tigray's Dallol area. 
  Potash was one of the most important industrial chemicals. It was refined from the ashes of broadleaved trees and produced primarily in the forested areas of Europe, Russia, and North America. Although methods for producing artificial alkalis were invented in the late eighteenth century, these did not become economical until the late nineteenth century and so the dependence on organic sources of potash remained. 
  Potash became an important international trade commodity in Europe from at least the early fourteenth century. It is estimated that European imports of potash required 6 or more million cubic metres each year from the early seventeenth century. 
  Between 1420 and 1620, the primary exporting cities for wood-derived potash was Danzig, Königsberg and Riga. From the 1640s, geopolitical disruptions meant that the centres of export moved from the Baltic to Archangel, Russia. In 1700, Russian ash was dominant though Danzig remained notable for the quality of its potash. In the late fifteenth century, London was the lead importer due to its position as the centre of soft soap making while the Dutch dominated as suppliers and consumers in the sixteenth century. 
  The first U.S. patent of any kind was issued in 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process". Pearl ash was a purer quality made by calcination of potash in a reverberatory furnace or kiln. Potash pits were once used in England to produce potash that was used in making soap for the preparation of wool for yarn production.
  By the eighteenth century, higher quality American potash was increasingly imported to Britain. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, potash production provided settlers in North America a way to obtain badly needed cash and credit as they cleared wooded land for crops. To make full use of their land, settlers needed to dispose of excess wood. The easiest way to accomplish this was to burn any wood not needed for fuel or construction. Ashes from hardwood trees could then be used to make lye, which could either be used to make soap or boiled down to produce valuable potash. Hardwood could generate ashes at the rate of 60 to 100 bushels per acre (500 to 900 m³/km²). In 1790, ashes could be sold for $3.25 to $6.25 per acre ($800 to $1,500/km²) in rural New York State – nearly the same rate as hiring a laborer to clear the same area. Potash making became a major industry in British North America. Great Britain was always the most important market. The American potash industry followed the woodsman's ax across the country. After about 1820, New York replaced New England as the most important source; by 1840 the center was in Ohio. Potash production was always a by-product industry, following from the need to clear land for agriculture.
  From 1767, potash from wood ashes was exported from Canada. By 1811, 70% of the total 19.6 million lbs of potash imports to Britain came from Canada.  Exports of potash and pearl ash reached 43,958 barrels in 1865. There were 519 asheries in operation in 1871. The industry declined in the late 19th century when large-scale production of potash from mineral salts was established in Germany. In 1943, potash was discovered in Saskatchewan, Canada, in the process of drilling for oil. Active exploration began in 1951. In 1958, the Potash Company of America became the first potash producer in Canada with the commissioning of an underground potash mine at Patience Lake; however, due to water seepage in its shaft, production stopped late in 1959 but following extensive grouting and repairs, resumed in 1965. The underground mine was flooded in 1987 and was reactivated for commercial pr
caption: A covered hopper car in a Canadian train for shipping potash by rail.
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