Thus this Onondaga Salt Company obtained exclusive control of the manufacture and sale of all salt, both fine and coarse, made from the wells on this reservation, and continue to exercise the same. It allots to each salt block the amount of salt it is allowed to make each year and determines the price per bushel it will pay, and usually lets this work to the owner of the block from whom it has taken the lease.

Hence it will be seen, that, although "The Onondaga Salt Co." is the one party in these leases and contracts and the individual or corporate owners of the separate blocks or coarse salt lots and covers are the other party, yet as these same individual or corporate owners are also stockholders in the said corporation in the same ratio as they are owners respectively. Yet the interests of both parties are identical, and that "The Onondaga Salt Co." was organized, for the purpose before stated, by the salt manufacturers by adding five or six per cent to their capital and creating a monopoly in its sale and manufacture.

Since 1860 salt deposits, especially at Saginaw, Mich., or in portions of Canada, have either been discovered or the manufacture therefrom has been much increased and improved. At these places wood, as a fuel, is much cheaper, and as the cost of fuel is the main expense in the manufacture of fine salt, it can, in that particular, be manufactured cheaper. But on account of the purity of the water from the Onondaga springs, its high comparative strength, .its exhaustless quantity and the ease with which it is obtained in connection with the improved methods of purifying and manufacturing it into salt, discovered through many costly experiments made by the State and by "The Onondaga Salt Co.," Onondaga salt, for the same quality, is produced cheaper than any other manufactured salt.

The use of coal as a fuel has not only cheapened but improved the manufacture thereof, and as the price of wood can but increase at the place of manufacture where it is used, while on the contrary the price of coal will doubtless not increase except by increase in price of labor; it is quite probable, if not certain, that this difference on account of the cost of fuel as between Saginaw, the works in Canada and the Onondaga salt springs will become less and less, and

thus enable the Onondaga salt the better to compete with salt from these other parts.

In this connection while referring to causes enabling the Onondaga salt the better to compete in the market with salt from other localities, and especially from Saginaw (which is the principal place from which competition comes westward), the undersigned would call attention to that well known fact that the bulk of freight on the canals and lakes is eastward, and hence that the price of freight is much less from Syracuse westward than from Saginaw eastward. In fact this is so much so that often shippers on the lakes are glad to get salt as ballast while any salt brought eastward must pay full freight. The great weight and bulk of salt according to its value only makes this difference the greater. These causes while they are thus advantageous to Onondaga salt in enabling it to compete with Saginaw salt in its home markets, and markets west of it also, operate favorably in another way. They operate to prohibit the sale of Saginaw salt any great distance eastward, especially not on or near Lake Erie, and thus give the entire control of the price in certain markets to the manufacturers of Onondaga salt. The market thus controlled is found to be all the State of New York, except the river counties, New York city, and some of the south eastern counties. It also includes a portion of Pennsylvania. The competition which prevents Onondaga salt controlling the market in N. Y. city, and the eastern and south eastern portions of the State, is the low price of foreign salt and the fact of the increased cost of freight eastward from Syracuse, considered in connection with its great weight as compared with its cost; as it gave Onondaga salt the advantage westward, gives foreign salt the advantage in these localities. To counteract this the tolls on the canal on foreign salt when compared with domestic salt are as 2 to 1 which makes a difference of five cents per barrel from Albany to Syracuse, and in that proportion for longer or shorter distances. The Onondaga Salt Company in order to protect itself and its stockholders from the high price of coal produced by another combination well known as the coal monopoly, purchased a coal mine in Pennsylvania sometime about the year 1862It operated this mine and thus obtained its own coal until the winter of 1865, when it sold this coal mine at an advance of $510,000, and also obtained a contract with the purchaser to furnish this Company with all the coal it might need for 17 years, at 50 cents above net cost.

Thus organized, the Onondaga Salt Compary have operated these salt springs under these circumstances with the following results, as appears from its books, the sworn statement of its officers, and of Hon. Geo. Geddes, Superintendent of salt springs, and his deputies. Amount of Salt Produced and Sold, and Price.

This salt was sold in the various markets in about the same ratio

each year, and in the year 1866, viz:

This shows the net avails of such sales at Syracuse; and as the sales in the State were in fact $2.35, at Syracuse the allowance of ten cents for selling must have been deducted.

The following is a table of the average cost of transportation and sale of a barrel of salt in each market in year 1866:

The following is a table of the net price realized at Syracuse of

all salt sold in different markets for different years:

From this it appears that in 1864 salt sold in upper lake ports netted 41 cents less, and that sold in lower lake ports 19 cents cents less than that sold in home market; and in 1866 that sold in upper lake ports 22 cents less, and that in lower lake ports 26 cents less per barrel than that sold in home market.

In addition to this the sales of fine salt in New York city in competition with foreign salt has been at net price at Syracuse of $1.60 to $1.75, and that sent to Canada via Oswego at a price from 25 to 40 cents per barrel less than home price, and that sold at Albany and some parts of Pennsylvania from 15 to 40 cents less per barrel. Thus the people of this State nearest the reservation have paid so much more, comparatively, for their salt.

In 1866 the valuation of property on which the Onondaga Salt Company paid 12 per cent under their leases was:

Coarse salt property..

Fine salt property and mills...

$1,618,640 00

1,777,613 76

$3,396,253 76

They are now valued, in the statement made by the Superintend

ent of the Onondaga Salt Company, as follows:

The dividends made by the Onondaga Salt Company were:

The Onondaga Salt Company make the following return of its operations in its investment in the coal mine, and getting their own

The Company sold their coal mine in winter 1865 and 1866, but under their contract they received,

1866,

132,503 at cost, $4.537

$6.282

making the whole number of tons furnished, 412,255 tons, with aggregate difference in price at which it was furnished, and asking price of coal monopoly, $989,229.01.

In 1866, the Onondaga Salt Company furnished coal to the manufacturers of fine salt at, $5.00 per ton.