Things that are wasted.
The rule of King Cotton which has prevailed for the last twenty five or thirty years, has been not only despotic, but extravagant in the extreme.
As Louis XIX.
said, "I am the
State," Cotton said, "I am alt." Not only was every other branch of industry neglected for the cultivation of the cotton field, but everything was permitted to go to waste which might have been saved.
Indeed, the neglect of all industrial enterprises rendered much of, this waste unavoidable, materials being allowed to perish because there was no provision for making them up into useful forms.
The most wholesale waste of which our people have been guilty, is that of the timber, which; by thousands of across every year, has been girdled and suffered to decay on the ground.
There has been an excuse for this in the fact that the immense area of fresh land, the clearing of which was made necessary by the rapid immigration into the fertile States of the
Southwest, could be cleared into other way; besides which, it may be admitted that the timber was not loss, being returned to the soil as it decayed.
This excuse would be more valid, had not the style of cultivation been extremely wasteful itself — impoverishing the land and requiring new clearings to be constantly made; but that is no excuse for our people permitting themselves to be dependent upon importation for the vast amount of soap consumed by them.
It is time that this should cause.
By felling, piling and burning the timber, ashes enough could be cared not only to supply all the waste of the country, but to constructs a valuable article of export.
On large plantations and at country villages and cross-roads, potash manufactories could be established all over the
Confederacy.
It is unnecessary to remark that the manufacture of soap should keep pace with that of potash.
The large amount of animal food consumed by our population tells the story of a great waste of grease which would thus be economized.
The tallow of the beeves consumed in the country would furnish all the candles that the country requires.
In the absence of steering manufactories, beeswax, an abundance of which is annually wasted, could be used to give them a proper hardness, and practice would soon render housewives export in the manufacture of an excellent article from these materials.
It is hardly necessary at present to allude to the waste of hides; we rather think that these are now carefully saved everywhere.
Had more care been taken of them formerly, the home manufacture of leather would be a regular business, and the sudden pressure upon it would not have carried prices to such an exorbitant figure.
Every discouragement, however, has been thrown in the way of this, as of all other manufactures.
The difficulty of procuring not only hides, but bark, has deterred many a man from undertaking it. In connection with the economizing of timber, the preservation of bark should be strongly enforced upon planters.
Let this once become the general rule, and tanneries would be multiplied throughout the interior.
Hides and tallow are not the only products of slaughtered animals which should be husbanded.
The borns and the bones are too valuable to be neglected.
There may be no manufactories of comb, buttons cutlery, &c., at present in the
Confederate States to consume these, but it is not too soon to save them.
We may any week hear — and it is high time we should hear — of such works being established, and when they are, their products will be cheaper the better the supply of raw material the manufacturers find accessible to commence on.
Deer horns, which are too rarely preserved, should also be taken care of, as we have known them to be in some instances; a thousand pair or so having been shipped from
Mobile in one consignment two or three years ago.
We are so destitute of chemical works that it seems hardly worth while to suggest the saving of blood — the principal material for the manufacture of Prussian blue — which from its perishable character, besides, can hardly be utilized except in cities, where it can be conveyed immediately to the manufactory.--There may be some method of preserving it for transportation, but no chemist, that we know of, has made any suggestions on this subject.
There are other substances, however, which are employed in the manufacture of Prussian blue; every kind of animal material indeed is used for this purpose — such as old leather, woolen, hair &c. Let such things be thrown aside into some shag corner; they may be called for. Phosphors, too, we omitted to remark, is made from house, and such as are not suitable for making buttons and knife handles can be used for this purpose.
The hoots, scraps of hide and tendonous parts of slaughtered animals are of great importance.
Enough of these are constantly wasted to furnish all the glue necessary for any purpose short of reconstructing the
Union.
The feathers of all fowls should be saved.--Hen's feathers are not to valuable, it is true, as those of geese, but they are too good to throw away and those, if not employed for filling beds and pillows, could be quilted into comforts to supply at home the place of the blankets sent to our brave boys in the field.
Cotton and linen rags, waste cotton, old bagging and rope, have been wasted to the amount of quite a million dollars a year in the
Confederate States.--With the present high price of paper, there can be no pretence that they are not worth caving.
Every country trader should offer a fair equivalent for them and accumulate the savings of his neighborhood, to be disposed of at the nearest paper mill; not as a speculation — that passion for speculation, and contempt for whatever does not yield a large profit, is what kills all useful enterprises here — but to oblige his customers by enabling them to convert into money what, without his assistance, would be lost.
Finally, every fragment of wrought or cast iron and old brace should be preserved, and when a sufficient quantity has accumulated, disposed of. It is but fair, however, that manufacturers should be willing to pay a remunerating price for them.
When
scrap iron was advertised for in this city last summer, many housekeepers collected lots of a dozen or twenty pounds of what had been lying about their promises; but on learning that only a cent or half a cent a pound would be paid for it, they took no further steps in the matter.
Hundreds of pounds might have been obtained if those who advertised for it would have paid the expense of picking it up and dry age to the wharf.
These are a few items which it has occurred to us to bring to the notice of our readers, to whom no doubt others will suggest themselves, which, if attended to, would prove a direct saving of millions of dollars to the country, besides the effect they would have of lowering the price of many important articles of consumption.--
Mobile Advertiser. 
