A RIVER VIEW 191 



there is an abundant harvest, after the ice-houses 

 are filled, they stack great quantities of it, as the 

 farmer stacks his surplus hay. 



The cutting and gathering of the ice enlivens 

 these broad, white, desolate fields amazingly. One 

 looks down upon the busy scene as from a hill- 

 top upon a river meadow in haying time, only here 

 the figures stand out much more sharply than they 

 do from a summer meadow. There is the broad, 

 straight, blue-black canal emerging into view, and 

 running nearly across the river; this is the highway 

 that lays open the farm. On either side lie the 

 fields or ice -meadows, each marked out by cedar or 

 hemlock boughs. The farther one is cut first, and, 

 when cleared, shows a large, long, black parallelo- 

 gram in the midst of the plain of snow. Then the 

 next one is cut, leaving a strip or tongue of ice 

 between the two for the horses to move and turn 

 upon. Sometimes nearly two hundred men and 

 boys, with numerous horses, are at work at once, 

 marking, plowing, planing, scraping, sawing, haul- 

 ing, chiseling; some floating down the pond on 

 great square islands towed by a horse, or their fel- 

 low-workmen; others distributed along the canal, 

 bending to their ice-hooks ; others upon the bridges, 

 separating the blocks with their chisel-bars; others 

 feeding the elevators; while knots and straggling 

 lines of idlers here and there look on in cold discon- 

 tent, unable to get a job. 



The best crop of ice is an early crop. Late in 

 the season, or after January, the ice is apt to get 



