94 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



PKIVATE COLD STORAGE HOUSE FOR FRUIT. 



Rliiiiy feel the need of a cold storage on the farm for storing iheir 

 frnit, esiKBcially apples, so that they can handle the fruit at their h^isnre 

 and market it when the prices are right. This is especially desirable 

 w^here the grower is located near by a large home market. 



Mr, Charles W. Wilde of Kent county is only .i few miles from the 

 large city of Grand Rapids and he has erected sucli a storage house on 

 his farm. A full page picture of this building is to be found in this 

 report. The building is 41 by 102 feet outside measure. The apple stor- 

 age rooms, four in number are 16 by 24 feet and 20 by 24 feet. An ice 

 room 20 by 24 feet and 20 feet high, is located at the north end. There 

 are no windows in the apple rooms and lanterns are used for light. 

 At the south end is a sorting room 12 by 24 feet. Along side of the 

 storage rooms are long rooms, each 10 by 102 feet which are used for 

 temporary storage and, during the winter for storing spray rigs. wagojiS, 

 etc. The apple storage rooms are connected by doors four feet wide 

 for a truck which will carry 18 crates. The apple storage rooms have 

 18 feet studding, packed with shavings. The construction of this build- 

 ing is further described by Mr. Wilde as follows: — 



I built the south three rooms of the storage about ten years ago, 

 using 2x4 studding, 18 feet long, boarding up with (j-inch hemlock floor- 

 ing and the best 2 ply P, B. building paper and packing the spaces with 

 shavings, and then set up another set of studding using (50 s[>ikes to 

 fasten them to the wall, until I had four spaces packed and a wall about 

 2 feet thick, composed of eight laj-ers of boards and twelve of paper and 

 four spaces packed with shavings. The floor of the ice rooms over- 

 head are covered with galvanized iron roofing with a slight pitch to- 

 wards the center, where a trough catches the drippage. We use to 

 put about 40 tons of ice overhead of each room in the winter without 

 any packing around the ice, and it would last until the next winter; 

 but such a large weight of ice overhead is hard on a building; so we 

 later built an ice room at the north end 20x24 feet and 20 feet high, 

 also built a road way for the truck through the ice rooms, so we now 

 store the ice in that room and truck it overhead the apple rooms as we 

 need it. In the rooms we built later we used 2x10 studding 18 feet long 

 and packed with shavings and double boarded inside and out which 

 answers very well where there is a common storage room all around 

 the cold storage rooms, as far as we have in our building. The foundation 

 walls of the cold storage rooms are made of cement and stone and built 

 high enough so that the 2x12 joice will bring the floor which is 2 inch 

 hemlock plank on a level with the platform of our low orchard wagon. 

 Under the floor there is from one to two feet of cobble stone covered 

 with gravel and cement to keep out the rats and mice and cut off the 

 ground heat. There is about two foot air space between the cement 

 floor and the plank floor. We lay the plank about one inch apart, so 

 the air will circulate and the joists will not rot. The ice rooms are seal- 

 ed overhead with 6 inch hemlock flooring and covered with 

 building paper and galvanized iron and the sides are covered in 



