1839] 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



131 



snow had failed. It was a wet snow. I had it roll- 

 ed into large balls on one day, and on the next, 

 when the water had pretty well drained out of it, 

 it was |}ul into carls and emptied into the ice-house. 

 In the latter mode when the snow is wet enough 

 to be rolled into balls with lacility, the filling is ex- 

 ecuted with more expedition, and packing very 

 close in the house, it does not dissolve so much as 

 the driven snow. I have filled my ice-house with 

 driven snow so white and clean, as to be used with 

 equal gust in all modes in which ice is used ; but 

 when rolled into balls, even on grass-lands, it con- 

 tracts impurities from the surface, from which it 

 cannot be freed, which render it unfit lor some few 

 of the purposes for which ice is used. For the pre- 

 servation of fresh meat, &c., and for the making of 

 ice-creams, snow is preferable to ice, for an obvious 

 reason ; while for almost all other purposes it may 

 be use(l with almost equal comfort and advantage. 

 Snow is water converted into vapor, exhaled, free 

 from all impurities ; and frozen in the clouds, de- 

 scends to us, and is an appropriate and beautiful, as 

 just emblem of the highest moral purity. Ice is 

 water congealed, with all its impurities, and these 

 are not a tew, and what is of more consequence, 

 the moGt nauseous of them are invisible ; at least 

 this is the character of the water from which the 

 ice is obtained, from which most ice-houses are 

 filled. The filling an ice-house with ice, is, to most 

 persons in the country, even when there is a stream 

 convenient, and a pond even without the expense 

 of constructing one, a job so laborious, expensive, 

 disagreeable, and unhealthy to those actively en- 

 gaged in its operations, that 1 have no doubt many 

 are kept from the enjoyment of this wholesome 

 (when pure,) and grateful luxury by these consi- 

 derations alone. And why should this be so, since 

 an ice-house filled with drifted snow, or snow wet 

 enough to be rolled into large balls, and left fur 

 twelve hours to drain before being put into the ice- 

 house, affords all the comforts, advantages and 

 luxuries which can be derived from one filled with 

 ice. Add to this, the cost of the former, it does 

 not exceed $10, and may be executed in dry and 

 mild weather, and exposes to no disease ; whereas, 

 if filled with ice, the work must be done while the 

 weather is very cold ; or if the ice be dissolving, it 

 is not so good, and greatly exposes to disease those 

 who are employed in the operation, and costs four 

 limes as much. 



My ice-house is walled with stone. I fill it with- 

 out placing any material betweens the wall and the 

 snow. As soon as it is filled, and the ice sunken 

 sufficiently for that purpose, which will be the first 

 few days of thawing weather, I cover it well with 

 wheat straw, say two or three feet thick, and as it 

 begins to separate from the wall I push the srtaw 

 dovvn as far as it can be got, and occasionally do 

 this during the summer. My ice-house frequent- 

 ly has snow in it when the season comes round tor 

 filling it. 



Robert H. Akcher. 

 Churchville, Harford, county, Md. 



From the Farmers' Cabiaet. 

 LIME. 



Mr. Editor, — Your Cabinet, which is even now, 

 I believe, the beet publication on farming in this 



country, might be rendered more generally useful, 

 I am sure, if your correspondents (who are nu- 

 merous and able,) would always state the grounds 

 on which they form their opinions. Advice, un- 

 supported by example, is seldom followed ; nor ia 

 the fact that the persons who give it most fre- 

 quently use fictitious names, any incentive to its 

 adoption, especially as the statements and conclu- 

 sions made by them, however true, often appear 

 ridiculous and absurd. If your contributors would 

 all substantiate their statements, (by a relation) as 

 I have intimated before, of the facts and experi- 

 ments on which 'they are founded, and give loo 

 their names and residences, so that people may 

 know on whom they depend, a very great stum- 

 bling block to the usefulness of your paper would 

 be removed. 



These reflections were produced by the singu- 

 lar circumstance, that although the Farmers' Cab- 

 inet abounds witii testimony in favor of using lime, 

 yet in tliis vicinity there are very few indeed wlio 

 have been prevailed upon by it to give this inval- 

 uable manure a trial. 



Now, Mr. Editor, if you think the following ex- 

 tract from my journal (free at least from the above 

 objection) will have any tendency to arouse the 

 people of this section of country to their own in- 

 terest, you are requested to give it a place in your 

 periodical. 



In the spring of 1835, 1 planted a field contain- 

 ing twenty-five acres of land in corn ; this field 

 was a light and sandy soil, and liad been in corn, 

 oats, and pasture, ^vithout any admixture of clo- 

 ver, or manure, successively for a number of years; 

 four hundred and seventy-five bushels of corn was 

 received frorh this field this season, which was 

 considered an uncommon large crop ; the follow- 

 ing spring this field was sown in oats, which at 

 harvest was in some places scarcely worth cut- 

 ting ; the following fall it was sown in wheat, and 

 in the spring following I sowed it in clover; the 

 result of the wheat crop was, that I did not receive 

 as much as was sown, and thinkmg the clover not 

 worth keeping for the scythe, it was pastured un- 

 til fall. 



Profiting by former experience, I now deter- 

 mined to apply lime to this field ; accordingly in 

 the spring (1838,) I had it well ploughed, and 800 

 bushels ofstone-lime carefully spread upon twenty 

 acres of the same. It was then harrowed well 

 until in good order, afier which it was struck out 

 lightly four feet square for planting corn, whicfi 

 was done from the first to the fifth oi' May. 

 (My reasons for adopting the above method, was 

 that the land being poor, and having, the fall pre- 

 vious to liming, been manured, I thought, by flush- 

 ing it in the sprifig, and spreading the lime on top 

 and harrowing well would be the best plan to pro- 

 duce a good crop of corn, as well as to improve 

 the land speedily ; and I would observe that the 

 corn was not cultivated so much as I wished, 

 owing to a storm which knocked it about so as 

 to render it impossible to continue cultivating it.) 

 I was careful in leaving but two stalks in each 

 hill. The corn on the twenty acrs, which had 

 been limed suffered but little if any, from the se- 

 vere drought which took place this season, but 

 the corn on the five acres having no lime on, suf- 

 fered very much. The corn was cut^up and shocked 

 in the month of September, and husked out and 

 measured in November. The corn was very dry 



