286 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



flower oil is getting to be a profitable horticultural crop, being used by paint 

 factories instead of linseed. ■" Agents, who sold anything for the true kind," 

 ■came in for their usual scoring. 



Edwin Satterthwaite furnished some excellent practical remarks on vegetable 

 •culture for market. 



Dr. Funk, of Boyertown, gave an explanation of his retarding house. He 

 said that lie is satisfied that a large body of ice is necessary to achieve success. 

 He built a house to contain seventy-five tons, which answered very well, but 

 when he needed the house most the ice was all gone. He is now putting up a 

 house which will require over 600 tons of ice. This building is forty by 

 forty-five feet, constructed of stone, the walls being twenty inches thick, every 

 crevice being filled out with mortar and spalls. Inside the wall is dead air 

 space six inches wide, and then a space three inches wide filled with ground 

 charcoal. The cold storage room is eight and one half feet high in the clear, 

 and the ice chamber twelve feet high. At the front entrance there is a solid 

 •door, opening into a vestibule large enough to contain three barrels. The 

 vestibule opens into a packing room, from which there are three doors four 

 inches thick, opening into three separate apartments, in which fruit is kept. 

 There can be no atmospheric change in the rooms. There is an open surface 

 above the ice chamber, with caps over the joists to catch all drippings. 



Mr. J. H. Bartram, of Chester county, being called upon, said that his refrig- 

 erator house is only sixteen feet square, and sixteen feet deep, requiring about 

 one hundred tons of ice. It is partly in the ground, and did not cost over 

 $300. He then described its construction after the manner of any ice house. 

 The general temperature is 37°. 



Dr. Funk, in reply to further inquiries as to the construction of the floor, 

 said that the floor is of simple construction of yellow pine, with about four 

 feet between it and the ground. There is a mortar floor underneath to keep 

 out the rats. He is able to put in a ton of ice a minute by means of an ele- 

 vator, worked by an endless chain, the ice being in large cakes, weighing 

 about two hundred pounds each, as the ice packs better in large masses. 



Dr. Funk said that he used to have to sell his Bartlett pears when ripe, for 

 -$1.50 a bushel. Now he sells them about Christmas for $4. 



