Febraarv 20, 1866. 



JOUKNAIi OF HOETICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GARDENEK. 



139 



considerable diversity of opinion h.as existed. Some of the 

 early ^Titers in Loudon's "Gardener's Magazine," recom- 

 mended water to be added to the pounded ice, as the ice-well 

 became filled ; and some went so far as to say that hot water 

 was better than cold, and this opinion is shared by some at 

 the present day ; but I never could perceive that hot water 

 when employed for such a purpose had any merit beyond 

 novelty. Generally speaking, the temperatui-e of an ice-house 

 when the men are at work in it, is not low enough to freeze 

 cold water quickly, and I think anything likely to increase the 

 heat of the place must be hurtful rather than otherwise. Salt 

 has been also appUed, and at one time had many advocates, 

 but having a great affinity for moistm'e it interfered with the 

 sound keeping of the mass, and its use has been generally 

 abandoned, although it is employed in the application of the 

 rough ice to confectionary, &c. Indeed, all artificial additions, 

 so far as I am aware, fail to prolong the time during which ice 

 may be kept. 



idthough there may be a difference between the melting 

 powers of a dry atmosphere and of a moist one, there can be no 

 question that warmth causes ice to melt, and the temperatiu'e 

 of an ice-well in summer, when its contents have disappeared, 

 is more likely to be 35° than below it. The wasting of the ice 

 is slow or rapid according to the temperature ; though I do not 

 assert that humidity has nothing to do with the ice liquefying, 

 still the hygi'ometer is seldom introduced into the ice-house, 

 and I am mors disposed to attribute the wasting of the ice to 

 warmth than to moisture. It is idle to talk of keeping an ice- 

 house dry, keep it as cold as you can, and it will not suffer from 

 damp — that is, if the thermometer can be kept low enough, but 

 this being impossible, the next best means is to expose the 

 ice as httle as may be to the action of the air. This object is 

 usually sought to be effected by covering the ice with straw, so 

 as to prevent as far as possible the access of air ; but any other 

 non-conducting substance would do as well as straw. I am not 

 sure that sawdust would not be better, tut it is not so easily 

 applied, and its removal in order to take out the ice when 

 wanted is more inconvenient. Surrounding the ice with a 

 non-conducting substance, so as to keep it from contact with 

 anything warmer than itself, is almost all that can be done to- 

 wards keeping it. Usually, when an ice-well is filled, the ice 

 begins to melt or waste at the sides and top, and very possibly 

 at the bottom also, leaving a cavity between the mass and the 

 wall of the building ; this cavity increases in size as the season 

 advances, and towards the end all that is left is a lump of ice 

 of greater or less size in the middle. To cover this lump with 

 straw or sawdust is not a difficult matter: in fact, it is usually 

 covered as soon as it has receded sirificiently far from the roof 

 and outer walls to allow of this being done. 



The difference in the keeping qualities of ice-wells is due to 

 local causes ; but most generally those wells keep ice best which 

 are dug in dry places, and the soil surrounding the casing of 

 the ice-well being cooled down to about 32°, it receives warmth 

 very slowly from the almost non-conducting medium which lies 

 next to it. When, on the other hand, water abounds in a soD 

 it becomes a never-ceasing source of heating. An example of 

 this occun-ed in an ice-house which was once pointed out to 

 me. The well was sunk in a wet gravel ; but means were 

 adopted to drain all water away from the bottom, and it was 

 thought by well cementing the brickwork forming the lining of 

 the well, so as to exclude the spring water, and carrying off the 

 latter by a drain at the bottom, aU was done that was necessary. 

 The result proved that such was not the case. The well, acting 

 as a drain to all adjoining springs, these flowed in its direction, 

 and as spring water is usually 15', or more, higher than melting 

 ice, the brickwork might be said to have been warmed externally 

 by water flowing continually towards it and trickling down its 

 sides. To say that the ice-weU was heated with hot water was 

 not far from the truth, seeing that that water was much 

 warmer than the substance to which it gave warmth. The 

 result wa? that the ice kept very badly. Although no water 

 found its way through the brickwork, or collected in any quan- 

 tity at the bottom, yet that trickling down the outside and dis- 

 charged by a proper drain, was equal to about two hundred 

 gallons per hour. 



Mr. Fish has made some useful suggestions about the form- 

 ation of a box or safe for ice for household pm-poses ; but 1 

 fear that the demand for cork for other pui-jjoses renders its 

 nse unlikely in many cases. A very good box may be made of 

 ordinal^ deal, lined with zinc or zinc plates, having a cavity of 

 about an inch bet veen the zinc and the outer deal, to be filled 

 with pounded charcoal. This non-conducting substance is per- 



haps as good as anything that I know ; but of course the close- 

 fitting of the lid and other circumstances determine to a great 

 extent the good-keeping or otherwise of the contents. Such 

 an apparatus has been in use for some years ; but, as Mr. Fish 

 justly observes, it is the frequent opening of the case and ihs- 

 turbing the ice inside that occasion the waste, and it is difficult 

 to prevent this, although the ingenious contrivance recom- 

 mended by Mr. Fish to obtain cool water without doing so 

 deserves notice. 



As the subject of ice-stacks was discussed in this Journal 

 some years ago, it is unnecessary to refer to that mode of pre- 

 serving a supply now, and the few places in which it has suc- 

 ceeded, as well as the expense of covering the stacks with straw 

 or some substance of a similar nature, renders it more expensive 

 than storing ice away in a well or other depository of a per- 

 manent character. At the same time I am not certain but that 

 a building more above the surface than under it may not answer 

 as well as the latter ; but these are not yet sufficiently nimae- 

 rous to be put in competition with the ordinary form of ice- 

 wells, and the cases in which they do either remarkably well 

 or the contrary may be owing to some local cause, so that it is 

 difficult in the present state of the question to pronounce a 

 decided opinion. — J. Eoeson^ 



ROSES. 



Touii correspondent " P.," at page 86, appears a little sur- 

 prised at the character I have given King's Acre. If he will 

 look back into Kos. 179, 185, 188, 19-2, and 226, he will find 

 that I am not the only one who has formed a favourable 

 opinion of that Rose. I had three blooms of it, one of which 

 was particularly fine, indeed I had no other variety at the 

 time that could bear comparison with it, except, perhaps, 

 Gloire de Dijon and Souvenir de la Malmaison, but, then, I 

 never had the former in greater perfection either here or any- 

 where else. " P." says that from one plant he had several 

 blooms ; now, may this not in a great measure account for the 

 disappointment ? I am strongly of opinion, indeed I feel 

 convinced, that if I had allowed aU the buds that made their 

 appearance on my small plant to have expanded. I should not 

 have had a bloom worth looking at. I never allow a plant to 

 have more than three blooms the first season after planting, 

 very fi-equently only one, and sometimes none at all, according 

 to the size and condition of the plant. Whether this is a 

 proper mode of treatment under all circumstances I do not 

 presume to say, for I am but a very humble authority on Eose 

 culture ; but I certainly do think that in a season so extra- 

 ordinarily hot and dry as the last it was rather too much to 

 expect both quantity and quality, more especially if his plant 

 is, like mine, on the briar, and if he had not a sufficiency of 

 water, which was a general complaint throughout the coimtry. 

 I am fortunate enough to have a river in front of my house, 

 within 5 yards of my garden ; I consequently had an unlimited 

 supply, which I stood much in need of. 



I may here mention that I put in at the same time with 

 King's Acre a strong plant of Prince Leon, and the blooms it 

 produced were quite open in the centre, indeed any one not 

 knowing the variety would have pronounced it worthless. I 

 had also one or two others — and strong health.y-looking plants 

 they were — that never showed a leaf until the middle of June, 

 although they had even- attention paid them. King's Acre was 

 the worst-looking plant of the lot, at least in regard to root, for 

 it was very bare, but it did better than any of them. I am not 

 sure that I know exactly the cause of all this, but I think it is 

 owing in a great measure to change of soil and situation, and 

 to the dry season which followed. One fact, however, I beg to 

 state — viz., that when Eoses are received from a nursery, 

 unless they are planted in so'l as good as that fi-om which they 

 have been removed, and in situations equally favom-able. they 

 cannot be expected to establish themselves thoroughly the 

 first season; they ought in fairness to have another year's 

 gi-aee allowed them before being condemned. 



" P." has left us in the dark as to the locality in which his 

 Eoses are grown, but from his letter we may reasonably 

 suppose his residence to be somewhere in the south of Eng- 

 land ; if so, I must remind him that I am in the heart of the 

 highlands, and anything I have written on the Eosc has re- 

 ference solely to the properties of the varieties as regards 

 their suitability for northern situations. I have grown Eoses 

 and seen them grown in vai-ious parts of England, both north 

 and south — from Dorset to Dmham I may say — and I com- 



