334 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. ^ 



roof; or a sliding panel in the door would answer; the ventilation must not be 

 a current of" air. If the caves of the roof extend a foot or two over the sides, a 

 greati^r protection is afforded against rain and the rays of the sun. The roof 

 of an ice house should be steep. Great care should be taken against leakages 

 of this, as well as of all other farm buildings. A ct ment may be applied with 

 a trowel or case-knife to all leaks in roofs, or about chimneys, &c., made thus : 

 Take pure white lead and mix it with boiled oil until it is of the thickness of 

 thin paint, add to this common sand until of the thickness of common mortar; 

 there is, perhaps, nothing better than this. A space twelve feet in the clear in 

 every direction will hold enough ice for a large family. 



Ice-houses should be located, as a general rule, on the north side of a hill, if 

 built under ground, so that the ice can be approached on a level with the ground 

 on which it is built. On many farms such a location is impracticable, and the 

 only alternative is to build one on the surface, which is now, on the whole, con- 

 sidered the most approved way. The general construction should be a wooden 

 frame building, with another outside of it, with a space intervening of from 

 fifteen to thirty inches, which should be filled in with coal-cinders, tan bark, or, 

 which is better than either, pulverized charcoal. It would be better if the inner 

 building were made of solid timbers close together, and about three inches thick ; 

 the outer one, or the shell, may be a common frame, neatly weather-boarded, 

 and kept well painted with white lead, so as to repel the heat of the sun. It 

 will add to the convenience of an ice-house if the bottom, or at least a part of 

 it, is arched, so as to form a place for a larder under this arch, or the drainings 

 of the ice should be made to pass thi-ough the dairy or " spring-house." 



The following extract, from Moore's Rural New Yorker, shows how a farmer 

 may build an ice-house cheaply. This has been built ten years, and is perfectly 

 sound except the inside boarding, Avhich requires renewing once in five or six 

 years : 



"The size is eight by ten outside, six feet high. I took two-inch plank, twelve inches 

 wide, for sills and plates, halved together at the corners. I used studs on the iuside, and 

 boarded up and down outside. The cracks should be covered with battens to prevent the air 

 striking the ice. The iuside should be boarded the other way, to within a foot or so of the 

 plates, which should be left until tiie space is filled. The rafters should be live or six-inch 

 stuff, boarded on the iuside, and the space filled with either sawdust or rel'uso tan bark. I 

 place poles or scantling in the bottom, and cover with slabs, which will afford all the drain- 

 age necessary. The door should always be on the north side. The cracks in the north 

 gable-end should be left open for the puipose of ventilation. I consider sawdust the best to 

 till the sides with, but tan-bark, turner's shavuigs, chaff, or straw, will do. The size of this 

 house may be objected to by some, but mine holds enough for a large family, and also a dairy 

 of twenty cows. I don't believe any dairymau who has had ice to use one year would be 

 without it for ten times the cost. 



One thing more about the house: It should be banked up at the bottom, for any circulation 

 of air through the ice will melt it as fast as water poured through it." 



Many farms have small streams of water running through them. In such 

 cases the locality for an ice-house should be selected with reference to the con- 

 venience of damming this stream near it, before Christmas, in such a way that a 

 lake of a hundred feet or more in diameter, and about two feet deep, may be 

 formed, and properly protected from cattle and all nuisances. This body of 

 water would yield enough ice for a large farm, and by its shallowness would be 

 more certain to yield a crop of ice, because a less degree of cold would be 

 required to freeze it solidly than in a deeper stream, or one which was running, 

 even with a sluggish current. One freezing over would yield thirty or forty 

 one-horse loads of this summer luxury. While the lavish use of ice and ice- 

 water cannot be prejudicial to the health of any family, common ice is one of 

 the most valuable of remedial means in case of sickness in various forms. 



To a person burning up Avith internal fevers ice is a comfort beyond ex- 

 pression. Swallowing ice freely in small lumps is the chief treatment in inflam- 

 mation of the Stomach. The constant application of ice pounded fine and en- 



