4.4^0 AGRICULTURAL RErORT. 



and endanger the gafety of voyagers. The mode of constructing ice-honses, 

 necessary at home and abroad, was not then well understood. 'J'he same was 

 tnie of preparhig ships to receive cargoes of ice. Tlie implements and ma- 

 chinery for cutting, transporting, hoisting into ice-houses, for storing, discharg- 

 ing, and lowering into the holds of vessels, &c., were to be invented. Sina? 

 1832 great progress lias been made in all these particulars. In 1836 other 

 parties engaged in the ice trade, and in other places, out of Boston, but without 

 success. " The facilities for cheap supplies of ice and low freights," said Air. 

 Tudor, in a report to the Boston Board of Trade in 1857, "keeps the trade 

 wliere it began, and at the same spot for shipments, and this having been the 

 case for about fifty years, it is probable the century will close without its fp- 

 moval, and the demand for ice meanwhile will constantly increase." 



The ice trade has doubtless preserved the Calcutta trade almost exclusively 

 ta Boston, and would do so for China were that country in a quiet condition, 

 added Mr. Tudor, whose freights paid to India for ice down to 1857 amounted 

 to from ten to fifteen per cent, of the earnings of the whole run of the ships out 

 and home again, and it is earned without cost or deduction to the charterer or 

 ship-owners. So it is with vessels bound to the Gulf of Mexico, taking from 

 50,000 to 00,000 tons of ice annually, from which the owners derived, on an 

 average, 8120,000 freight money, the shippers paying the expense of loading 

 and discharging the cargoes. 



The following table will show the beginning and progress of the ice trade as 

 near, says Mr. Tudor, as can be ascertained, dropping fractions, exclusive of 

 the home trade of consumjition : 



1806, 1 cargo 130 tons. 



1816, 6 cargoes 1, 200 tons. 



1826, 15 cargoes 4, 000 tons. 



1836, 45 cargoes 12, 000 tons 



1846, 175 cargoes 65, 000 tons. 



18^6, 363 cargoes 146, 000 tons. 



The exports of 1856 were made to Philadelphia and nearly every portintbe 

 United States south of that; to South America, the East and West Indies, to 

 tlie English settlements in India, to Canton, Mauritius, and Australia. Since 

 this statement, made by Mr. Tudor in 1857, the trade has increased and ex- 

 tended to other places. The mention of these ports will serve to give the 

 reader some idea of the extent of the ice trade of 13oston. 



In 1847 the shipments of ice coastwise from Boston were 51,887 tons, and 

 WT*i*e to nearly thirty places from Philadelphia to Galveston, Texas. These 

 shipments were made in 49 ships, 39 barks, 45 brigs, 125 schooners, making 

 in all 258 vessels. In the same year, 1847, the ice shipped to foreign port-j 

 amounted to 22,591 tons, and was sent to the following places : Cuba and tlte 

 West Indies, South America, Calcutta, China and the East Indies, and to 

 Liverpool. These shipments W(!re made in 21 ships, 24 barks, 38 brigs, and 

 12 schooners, making in all 95 vessels, which, with the 258 vessels engaged m 

 the coastwise trade, make an aggregate of 353 vessels engaged in the ice tra/le, 

 or partially so, in 1847. 



The freights during this year, 1847, averaged, it is said, as high as $3 50 

 pef ton, which would amount, on the 74,478 tons shipped coastwise and 

 abroad, to 8186,195. The cost of securing ice and storing it varies according 

 ta the season, and the expense of shipping varies also as the expenses of fit- 

 tings vary required for different voyages. Taking all the contingencies into 

 the account, the cost of ice on board a ship is estimated to avei-age $2 a ton. 

 wliich would give for the above quantity shipped $148,956. In 1847 upwards 

 of 29 cargoes of provisions, fruits, and vegetables were shipped in ice to ports 

 ■vuliere otherwise they could not have been sent, as, for example, to the West 



