226 BOARD OF AGKICULTUKE. [Pub. Doc. 



Cold Storage for Farm Products. 



By MR. GEO. L. CLEMENCE, SOUTHBRIDGE. 



A person does not need to be far advanced in years to re- 

 member when ice, as a household or farm commodity, was 

 used only to a limited extent and in isolated instances. 

 Scarcely more than two-score years ago the farmer was wont 

 to chill his hay-tield drink by depositing pail or jug in some 

 near-by s})ring or brook, and if neither of these were con- 

 venient, his drink was taken at a temperature towards the 

 boiling point, the rays of the summer sun having penetrated 

 through the bushes or grass that covered pail or jug. 



Then, also, to keep butter cool it was laid on the cellar 

 bottom, and if it was desired to keep a can of milk over 

 until the next day a string w^as tied to the handle, and the 

 whole was inmiersed in the well. What few ice-houses there 

 were in those times were small and primitive afiairs, and 

 their construction was almost invariably underground, for 

 to expose the exterior of an ice-house to the open air and 

 sunlight was a plan at once considered wrong in principle. 

 It is also a matter of interest at this time to note that the 

 great mass of people, of thirty-five or forty years ago, 

 smiled at the idea of having a supply of ice in the summer 

 months, and did not recognize its need or economy. But 

 as correct principles of ice-house construction became 

 known, which, wath improved methods of gathering the 

 crop, reduced the cost, so that it was within the means 

 of all, ice has come to be an indispensable article in prac- 

 tically every household and upon every farm, in these days 

 of a manifold increase in the needs and demands of human 

 life, as represented, at least, in the New England States. 



With the ice-house a success, the family refrigerator fol- 

 lowed. Only a few years ago this was scarcely more than a 



