448 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



Foroig-n shipments for 1857, SG per ton ; in 1858, S5 50; in 1859, $5 50; 

 in 1860,86 ; in 1861, 86; in 186:i, $7 ; and in 1863, 87. 



These are about the average cost per ton for both coastwise pid foreign 

 shipments of ice for the years named above, as furnished by one of the largest 

 ice companies in Boston. It has been as low as 50 cents a ton for coastwise 

 trade ; and it has been as high as 810 per ton for foreign trade. 



Ice has been exported from Boston to New York city. It was done in 1863, 

 by Addison, Gage & Co., for 811 a ton. The quantity of ice nsed in Now 

 York in 1855 was estimated at 305,000 tons. Rockland lake furnishes 

 120,000 tons; Highland lake, 30,000 tons; New liochelle, 10,000 tons; 

 Athens, 15,000 tons; Rhinebeck, 18,000 tons; Kingston creek, 60,000 tons; 

 Catskill, 20.000 tons; Barrytown. 12,000 tons. The Knickerbocker Company 

 store 113,000 tons of this quantity ; the remainder being chiefly stored by four 

 other firms. Albany, Hudson, Newburg, Poughkeepsie, and Troy, severally 

 store annually from 10,000 to 30,000 tons. Syracuse began to store ice in 1844, 

 and the quantity there used now is nearly 20,000 tons, mostly from Onondaga 

 lake. Rochester and other cities in western and central New York haA'e fol- 

 lowed the example of Syracuse. The average price is 25 cents a hundred. 

 Cincinnati and Chicago are chiefly supplied from the lakes, the former city 

 receiving her supply from Cleveland. Places along the Mississippi are supplied 

 from the neighborhood of Peru, Illinois. Farmers are building ice-houses 

 over the country, and thus storing what ice they need for home consumption. 

 Once they regarded ice as a luxury, but now they deem it a necessity. 



In Newport, Rhode Island, about 10,000 tons of ice are cut and stored 

 yearly. Mr. Daniel Cook, of that city, states that the ice business was begun 

 there about fifteen years ago, at Lily pond. Mr. Cook puts up about 5,000 to 

 5,500 tons a year. No ice is exported, and ordinarily none imported, though 

 last season was an exception, as Mr. Cook was obliged to ship some from Bath, 

 Maine, and paid $15 a ton, weighed where it was shipped. He cuts blocks 

 four feet square, elevates them over an inclined way by steam at the rate of 

 thirty tons an hour. The pond from which the ice is taken is good water, as 

 it is fed with springs. 



Considerable quantities of ice are cut and stored in Maine ; yet it is true, as 

 said by an English writer, the ice trade is chiefly carried on by Boston and 

 Norway ; the latter country supplying the English market with ice at lower 

 rates than can be done by Boston exports. Nearly 82,000,000 are invested in 

 the ice trade of Boston and vicinity, employing about 550 ships, and giving 

 employment to about 4,000 persons. 



Though it is more than half a century since the ice trade was introduced by 

 Mr. Frederic Tudor, yet millions in civilized society pine for the want of it in 

 hot weather. It is almost a necessary of life, and we hope the time is not 

 distant when farmers will gather their ice crop as regularly as their fai'm 

 crops. 



Mr. Everett, on one occasion spoke of the foreign ice trade as follows : 



"When I had the honor to represent the country at London, I was struck one day, at the 

 royal drawing--room, to see the president of the Board of Control, (the hoard charged with 

 the supervision of the government of India,) approaching me with a stranger, then much 

 talked of in Loudon, the Baou Dwarkauauth Sagorc, a Hindoo of great wealth, liberality, 

 and intelligence. He was dressed with oriental magnificence, having on liis head as turban 

 a rich cashmere shawl, lield together by a large diamoutl brooch, with anotlier cashmepe 

 around his body ; his countenance and manncn's were those of a highly intelligent and re 

 markable person, as he was. After the ceremony of introduction, he said tliat he wished to 

 make his acknowledgments to me, as the American minister, I'or the benefits my conntrj-men 

 had conferred on his countrymen. At first I did not know to what he referred. I thoaght 

 he might have liad in view tlie mission schools, knowing, as I did, that he himself had doiK' 

 a great deal for education. He immediately said, however, that he referred to the cargoes of 

 ice sent from America to India, conducing not only to comfort, but liealth ; adding that 

 numerous lives are annually saved by applying lumps of American ice to the heads of 

 patients in cases of high fever." 



