Sugar.-In Louisiana alone in the United States is it produced in any quantity from the cane, and the quantity so produced is never sufficient for consumption of the United States, and in foreign markets it is only of importance as it supplies or fails to supply our home demand. The following table will show how varied and uncertain is the yield. An unfavourable time for planting or an early frost will reduce the probable yield onehalf, and we are never actually sure of our crop until it be actually rolled.

Charges to Factors and Receivers.—Drayage, storage, and labour, piling up, and turning out for weighing, twenty-seven cents and a half per bale for the first sixty days, and ten cents per bale per month afterwards. All extra labour will be charged.

Charges to Shippers of Compressed Cotton.-Labour, in all cases, five cents per bale. If not ordered within fifteen days from the time it is received, ten cents per bale per month storage will be charged additional. All necessary repairs will be charged. Drayage on ship-board, within the first and second municipalities, twelve cents and a half per bale; within the limits of the third municipality, fifteen cents per bale.

Charges on Uncompressed Cotton.-All cotton remaining over night only, or longer, will be charged ten cents per bale per month, and all labour incurred.

All cotton changing ownership, or transferred from one party to another, will be charged new storage, and any labour which may be incurred.

All cotton hauled to the presses for compressing, will be charged the drayage to the press, in addition to that on ship-board.

All the foregoing charges will be considered payable in cash, and collected at least once per month.

COTTON CROP OF THE UNITED STATES.

STATEMENT and Total Amount for the Year, ending the 31st of August, 1845.

Total crop of 1845, as above...
Crop of last year.

2,030,409

Increase..

364,094

FROM

To Great
Britain.

To France.

To North of
Europe.

Other Foreign

TOTAL.

Ports.

VOL. II.

Note.-The shipments from Mississippi are included in the export from New Orleans.

6 к

QUANTITY Consumed by and in the Hands of Manufacturers.

It will be seen, that we have deducted from the New Orleans and Mobile statements, the quantity received at those ports from Texas-Texas being a foreign country. Our next annual statement will probably include Texas in the crop of the United States.

Our estimate of the quantity taken for consumption, does not include any cotton manufactured in the states south and west of Virginia, nor any in that state, except in the vicinity of Petersburg and Richmond.

The quantity of new cotton received at the shipping ports amounted to about 7500 bales, same as last year.

In regard to the crop now gathering, we have loud complaints of injury from drought in certain sections, while in others the yield is represented as good. It is too early yet to form any reliable conclusion as to the quantity that may reach the market.

In the New Orleans statement, we notice an allowance of 6000 bales for cotton sent up the river to the western states. As it is probable some of this cotton reaches Philadelphia and Baltimore " overland," we omit the overland item in our statement of the crop for this year.

SE

PATHENSUR

987

MISCELLANEOUS STATEMENTS.

ICE TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES.

The principal locality for cutting ice to be exported to foreign countries, is the Wenham Lake, near Boston. Boston and the suburb, or town of Charlestown, near the lake, are the principal places of export.

There are in Boston sixteen companies engaged in transporting ice to the East and West Indies, New Orleans, South America, and Europe, and to other warm climates. In 1830, the quantity of ice shipped from Charlestown to distant ports amounted to 30,000 tons. No less than 50,000 tons were exported from Boston. The expense to the shippers was 12,340 dollars, or about a quarter of a dollar a ton. The average receipts were 3,570,000 dollars; a single firm in Boston freighted 101 vessels, and a cargo was sent to the East Indies and exchanged pound for pound for cotton, which was sold at a profit in England. Sawdust, for packing, is worth three dollars per cord. Formerly, ice sold in New Orleans for six cents (threepence) per lb., and now sells for one cent (one halfpenny) per lb.; but more money is made from the increased consumption at one cent than was made at six cents. The ice is sawed into blocks by a machine, and is packed on board the vessel with straw and hay, in thin deal boxes, air-tight. One company expended 7000 dollars for hay alone. The annual crop of Wenham Lake ice is considered good at 200,000 tons, and can be cut and housed in about three weeks.

In September, 1833, the first cargo of ice from Boston was discharged at Calcutta.

Since 1833, the trade has increased greatly; and, from the small beginning at Boston, has extended from other northern ports; and a considerable quantity is now annually shipped at New York. Great improvements have been made in packing, so that the wasteage is much reduced. Large quantities are shipped to New Orleans, and other southern ports; and the home consumption of ice has augmented largely. Salmon, from the state of Maine, and cod and other fish, from Boston, are packed in ice, and sent by the various railroads to the interior of western New England, and as far north as Buffalo.

The export of ice from Boston, for the month ending August 31, 1844, is as follows:

The Wenham Lake is in an elevated position, and embosomed within hills. The lake has no inlet whatever; but is fed solely by springs which issue from

the rocks at its bottom, a depth of 200 feet from its surface. This depth explains the great solidity of the ice formed upon the lake.

The ice-houses are built of wood, with double walls; the space between which is filled with sawdust; thus interposing a medium, that is nearly a nonconductor of heat, between the ice and the external air; the consequence of which is, that the ice is not affected by the temperature of the external atmosphere.

The machinery employed for cutting the ice, was invented for that purpose. It is worked by men and horses.

From the time when the ice first forms, it is carefully kept free from snow until it is thick enough to be cut; that process commences when the ice is a foot thick. A surface of some two acres is then selected, which at that thickness will furnish about 2000 tons; and a straight line is then drawn through its centre from side to side each way. A small hand-plough is pushed along one of these lines, until the groove is about three inches deep and a quarter of an inch in width, when the marker' is introduced. This implement is drawn by two horses, and makes two new grooves parallel with the first, twenty-one inches apart, the gauge remaining in the original groove. The marker is then shifted to the outside groove, and makes two more. Having drawn these lines over the whole surface in one direction, the same process is repeated in a transverse direction, marking all the ice out into squares of twenty-one inches. In the meantime, the plough' drawn by a single horse, is following in these grooves, cutting the ice to a depth of six inches.

"One entire range of blocks is then sawn out, and the remainder are split off toward the opening thus made, with an iron bar. This bar is shaped like a spade, and of a wedge-like form. When it is dropped into the groove, the block splits off; a very slight blow being sufficient to produce that effect, especially in very cold weather. The labour of splitting' is light or otherwise, according to the temperature of the atmosphere. Platforms,' or low tables of frame-work, are placed near the opening made in the ice, with iron slides extending into the water, and a man stands on each side of this slide, armed with an ice-hook. With this hook the ice is caught, and, by a sudden jerk, thrown up the slide' on to the platform. In a cold day every thing is speedily covered with ice by the freezing of the water on the platforms, slides, &c., and the enormous blocks of ice, weighing, some of them, more than two cwt., are hurled along these slippery surfaces, as if they were without weight.

"Forty men and twelve horses will cut and stow away 400 tons a day; in favourable weather 100 men are sometimes employed at once. When a thaw or a fall of rain occurs, it entirely unfits the ice for market, by rendering it opaque and porous, and occasionally snow is immediately followed by rain, and that again by frost, forming snow-ice, which is valueless, and must be removed by the plane.' The operation of planing is similar to that of cutting.

66

In addition to filling their ice-houses at the lake and in the large towns, the company fill a large number of private ice-houses during the winter-all the ice for these purposes being transported by railway. It will easily be believed, that the expense of providing tools, building houses, furnishing labour, and constructing and keeping up the railway, is very great; but the traffic is so extensive, and the management of the trade so good, that the ice can be furnished, even in England, at a very trifling cost.

"Extensive ice-bouses, in London and at Liverpool, have been constructed of stone, &c. Though transported in the beat of summer, it is not much reduced in bulk. The masses of ice are so large, that a small surface only is exposed to atmospheric action in proportion to their weight, and therefore do not suffer from their exposure to it, as the smaller and thinner fragments do, which are obtained in our own or other warmer climates. It appears, also, that ice frozen upon very deep water, is more hard and solid than ice of the same thickness obtained from shallow water."

THE Export of Ice from Boston for the Month of February, 1845, has been as follows: