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AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 307 



5. This is probably owing to deficient ventilation. That is, openings in 

 the gable ends far above the ice, to allow the hot air and foul gases that 

 accumulate there to pass off. If the stone walls of an ice-house once get 

 heated from the sun, they retain the heat day and night, and communicate 

 it to the atmosphere within. Stone is the worst material for an ice-house 

 that can be used. 



A very interesting discussion followed upon the ice-house question, and 

 the preservation of fruit by ice. 



Mr. J. P. Veeder. — I made my ice-house by digging a hole ten or twelve 

 feet square, and lined it with boards as a double wall, filled in with tan- 

 bark. My roof is a straw thatch. My ice keeps perfectly well. I have 

 good drainage, and I put about six inches of straw around the ice, on bot- 

 tom, sides, and top. The house is only four feet below the surface, and 

 the rest above. I pack about twelve or fourteen tons of ice, being careful 

 to fill all the crevices with broken ice. 



John Gr. Bergen said that he did not think a double roof necessary. 

 None of the ice-houses in his neighborhood had them. 



Prof. Mapes. — The point settled in building ice-houses is that the whole 

 ice-house should be above ground. This is the practice in Massachusetts. 

 There is no substance equal to a confined space of air for the walls of ice- 

 houses. Build of whatever substance you please, so that you have a double 

 wall, and tight enough to hold air, and you will have a perfect protector of 

 ice. As to ventilation, Jenner, who first constructed ventilated ice-boxes, 

 found that ice melted faster iu ventilated than in unventilated boxes. Ven- 

 tilation is necessary when you desire to keep food sweet. If there is no 

 ventilation, the confined air soon becomes very foul from animal substances 

 on ice. He then gave some interesting particulars of the large refrigera- 

 tors in some of the city packing-houses. Some are so large that they use 

 up a number of tons of ice a day. The temperature is kept at 42", and 

 in large rooms thus cooled, hundreds of animals can be killed and cooled 

 every day. If your object is to keep ice without use, shut up close, it 

 needs no ventilation. He also spoke of Curtis's plan of keeping fruit, 

 which he keeps secret. But it is true that it keeps fruit very perfectly. I 

 thought that I had found out how to keep fruit, by imbedding it in bone 

 black. The fruit keeps well, but it is worthless, as the aroma of the fruit 

 is lost. The best thing that I have tried is very clean washed and dried 

 beach sand. The stem of the fruit, if it has one, must be sealed. I wrap 

 each pear in tissue paper, and then, if the sand is pure and dry, and placed 

 where it will keep dry, the fruit keeps well. 



Wm. S. Carpenter. — I have prolonged the ripening of pears by placing 

 them on the ice. Fall pippins are preserved in the same way, packed in 

 barrels, and simply laid upon the ice. 



The Chairman mentioned an experiment of packing apples in cider, but 

 it did not answer. I packed pippins in dry sand, and kept them three 

 years. The apples were first dipped -in wax, and then wrapped in tissue 

 paper, and carefully packed in well washed and dried sand. 



