204 



Ice Houses. 



Vol. Iir. 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Ice Mouses. 



In your July number, tlie question is asked, 

 "who will answer to the reqtiet^t of a £ub- 

 Fcriber to be infoi'med of the bf^st plan of build- 

 ing ice-houses, the most suitable situation, 

 &LC. (Sic"!" As n)y experience upon this sub- 

 ject has been considerable, and differs, in some 

 respects, from that communicated for the Cabi- 

 net in some of the succeeding numbers, I beo- 

 Jeave to trouble you with it, thouo-h at tliis 

 late day; and ask the favor of a publication, 

 if you shall believe there is in the premises 

 any infoinialion conveyed worth the expense 

 of printing-. 



The first great secret in constructing an ice- 

 Iiousp, wiiich w-ill preserve the ice until the 

 succeeding winter, consists in making it of 

 considerable capacity — to contain from fiO to 

 1(10 full ox cart loads. The next is, tJiat it 

 phould be under ground, and in a porous soil. 

 If this last cannot be obtained, the inconveni- 

 ence may be obviated, where the location will 

 admit of it, by a tortuous drain from the bot- 

 tom, so constructed as to permit the passage 

 of the water from the dissolving ice without 

 admitting the introduction of the warm ex- 

 ternal air; or in a comparatively level situa- 

 tion, by sinking a well in tfce centre deep 

 enough to reach a porous soil:; or, if this can- 

 not be reached easily, of capacity sufficient to 

 contain eight or ten hogsheads of water, and 

 in both cases walled and not Jillcd uy with 

 stone. The bottom of the pit may be so con- 

 structed as to have a fall froin the whole cir- 

 cumference to this centre. 



]\Iy ice-house is a pit eighteen feet square, 

 and, twelve feet deep, walled up with stone as 

 an ordinary cellar — the w'all eighteen inches 

 thick, and continued one foot above the ground 

 — the roof of shingles, and the ends boarded 

 up with the space of an inch between each 

 board, to admit a free ventilation. I f 11 it in 

 the following manner. When there comes a 

 good snovvf which drifts a good deal, I collect 

 three or four ox carts and half a dozen hands, 

 and chosing a drift wiiich lias blown from a 

 grass field, the snow is cut with a shovel or 

 spade into blocks of a size to be handled with 

 facility, loaded into the carts, which are backed 

 up to the door of the ice-house and tilted in. 

 The business of one hand is to remain in the 

 ice-house and tramp the snow uv// and cvenhj 

 down. When the snow is in good condition, 

 that is, when it is drilled into high banks, and 

 thereby rendered solid, the filling is executed 

 witii great facility, economy and celerity. In 

 the winter of 1837 my ice-hoiisc was filled to 

 the comb (if the roof in one day and a quar- 

 ter, by Kcvfn hands and two ox-carta. The 

 drift was within 1.^)0 yards of the icn-ho<ise. 

 In the winter oflS^S I filled the same house 



in one day and a half by five hands and three 

 oxcarts. This .snow was not drifted. It was 

 tlie last of March, and the prospect of getting 

 drifted snow had failed. It was a wet snow. 

 I had it rolled into large balls on one day, and 

 on the next, when the water had pretty well 

 drained out of it, it was put into carts and 

 emptied into the ice-house. In the latter 

 mode when the snow is wet enougli to be 

 rolled into balls with facility, 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 aad clean 

 as to be uscti with equal gust in all modes 

 in which ice is used ; but when rolled into 

 balls, even on grass lands it contracts impuri- 

 ties from the surface, from which it cannot be 

 freed, which render it unfit for some few of 

 the purposes for which ice is used. For the 

 preservation 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 used with almost 

 equal ccinfort, and advantage. Snov.' is wa- 

 ter converted into vapor, exhaled, free from 

 all impurities; and frozen in the clouds, de- 

 scends to us, and is an appropriate and beau- 

 tiful, as just emblem of the highest moral pu- 

 ril}'. Ice is water congealed with all its im- 

 purities, and these are not a kw, and what ia 

 of more consequence the most nauseous of 

 them are invisible, at least this is the charac- 

 ter 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 per- 

 sons in the country, even when there is a 

 stream convenient, and a pond even witiiout 

 the expense of constructing one, a job .'^o la- 

 borious, expensive, disagreeable and un- 

 healthy to those actively engaged in its ope- 

 rations, that I have no doubt many are kept 

 from the enjoyment of this wholesome (when 

 pure) and grateful luxury by these considera- 

 tions alone. And why should this be so, since 

 an ice house filled with drifted snow, orsnow 

 wet enough to be rolled into large hnlls, and 

 left for twelve hovrs to drain before being 

 put into the ice-honsc, aftords all the couiforts, 

 advantages and luxuries which can be derived 

 from one filled with ice. Add to this, the cost 

 of tlie former, it does not exceed .'r-lO, 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 bo dissolv- 

 ing, it is not so good, and greatly exposes to 

 disease those who are employed in the opera- 

 tion, and costs four times as much. 



My ice-house is walled with stone, I fill 

 it without placing any material between the 

 walls and the snow. As soon as it is filled 

 and the ice sunken sufficiently for that pur- 



