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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ January 27, 1863. 



it was wheeled back over the surface of the quarter and regu- 

 larly spread, and the large lumps broken-up. On the surface of 

 all was wheeled a garden rubbish-heap, rotten leaves, road-scrap- 

 ings, dung, and any other decayed vegetable matter that could be 

 obtained. A trench was then opened at the end of the quarter, 

 and the whole was turned over and mixed the same as is done 

 with a compost-heap, to the depth of the original clay, which 

 was forked-up aB well as it would allow at the bottom of each 

 trench. This formed a staple on which almost any crop that 

 could be put on it in the way of vegetables grew with such a 

 luxuriance as I have never seen equalled either before or since. 

 I have seen Brussels Sprouts over 4 feet in height, studded, with 

 hard sprouts more like a rope of Onions than anything else. 

 Peas, Cauliflowers, &c, were amazingly fine crops. One quarter 

 which I burned in 1854 had the finest crop of Carrots that 

 could be desired, and to have attempted such a crop on it 

 previons to its being passed through the fiery ordeal, would 

 have been in vain. 



The expense attending such an operation as that just described, 

 will, of course, occur to the minds of those whom such a matter 

 may concern. I am sorry to say that I can give no accurate 

 estimate of the expense per acre, as no account was kept of the 

 cost. This, however, I know, that it is not so much as some 

 might imagine. In my case, with the exception of two extra 

 labourers the first autumn and part of the winter, the whole of 

 the work was done in the autumn and winter by the ordinary 

 allowance of men for the place, and the money value of the wood 

 consumed was not worth thinking of, as it was simply such as 

 was fit only for firewood. I feel convinced there is no other 

 way of overcoming so well the difficulties and unprofitable labour 

 connected with such a soil. — Daved Thomson, Archerfield 

 Gardens. 



KEEPING ICE. 



About this time last year this campaign concluded in articles 

 of peace, I believe, to the satisfaction of us all, and to the good 

 of our readers. Much of prejudice and preconceived notions 

 was removed, and the practice and science of the question were 

 proved and vindicated the one by the other. 



The subject being a very cold one, I take it the temperature of 

 the parties engaged in the Btrife is by this time sufficiently near 

 "temperate" to admit of the chronicles of the campaign being 

 written by one of the combatants. But that was not what 

 induced me to write about ice to-day, for I had not the smallest 

 intention to blunt a pen on it this season until the middle of 

 January; but having read the article on "American Ice-houses" 

 at page 31, as extracted from the Canadian Agriculturist, I 

 have swerved from my purpose ; more especially because an 

 innocent gentleman, whose good opinion I am very jealous about, 

 has been led into a mistake about my views on ice-keeping by 

 one of those common blunders which none of us can account for. 

 Mr. J. Anderson, of Meadow Bank, TJddingstone, in the west 

 of Scotland, is the gentleman I allude to. He was not a reader 

 of the first volumes of the old Cottage Gaedeneb, where is 

 recorded the reason why we drifted into that war. The " why" 

 is briefly this. 



The old ice-house at Shrubland Park, in a steep bank of pure 

 white sand of very great depth, never did keep ice since it was 

 made, about the time the Duke of York reviewed the volunteers 

 there, which the first baronet of Shrubland raised to resist the 

 threatened invasion of the first Napoleon. My predecessor, Mr. 

 Lindsay, then from Highclere, introduced the ice-stack system 

 about five or six and twenty years since, and was very success- 

 ful with it. He told me it would be of no use trusting to the 

 old ice-house, nor did I, and for the next fifteen years the ice- 

 stack never failed once ; and we never reached the bottom of it 

 in any one year till the foundation had to be regulated for the 

 next start. 



This ice-house, however, was filled and used aB a game- 

 larder and kitchen-garden preserve, just as the Canadian farm 

 has it. I had not the least merit as regards the ice-stack ; I did 

 it exactly as Mr. Lindsay told me. The expense of forming it and 

 obtaining the ice daily from it for three or four months was not 

 one-half so much as that of putting the ice into and taking it 

 out of the ice-house, from which a bucket of ice waB never drawn 

 in my time. 



When my tether was nearly run at Shrubland, a great landed 

 gentleman, the owner of Helmingham Hall, in Suffolk, who had 

 jnst finished a new castle in Cheshire, told me his architect made 



him an ice-house there all above-ground, and thoroughly venti- 

 lated from end to end, and that ice kept better in that way than 

 by the old plan. I ventilated the old house, which never would 

 keep ice, and for the next three years it kept the ice just as weU 

 as the stack ; so I had no merit in the question at all, unless it 

 was to battle with prejudice against scientific truth, as I always 

 did and will do. 



The ice-house which Mr. Tollemache's architect made — J. Tol- 

 lemache, Esq., M.P. for Cheshire — is as near as possible like the 

 American ice-house transferred to our columuB the week before 

 last — so near, indeed, that the said architect must have had his 

 notions from Canada, or else the Canadians had a leaf out of 

 The Cottage G-aedemsb some dozen years since. But neither 

 Mr. Tollemache's architect, nor the Canadian farmers, nor yet 

 your humble servant, ever said one word about ventilating ice 

 at all, and there was where aU the cause of the war lay, and 

 through that lucky mistake the war had room and scope enough 

 to last for twelve years. 



I saw how the tide was likely to flood the cellars and the 

 cobwebs, and I went quietly and put it on the record as early as 

 1851, that in all this ventilation no particle of air must reach the 

 ice. In Vol. V., page 148, for December the 5th, 1851, you will 

 find it written thus : — " Currents of air to carry off the vapours 

 arising from the slow melting of the ice are the prime considera- 

 tion in ice-keeping ; and confining the passages by any means 

 to prevent the escape of these vapours is a fertile source of 

 waste and extravagance. Those who have read the way in 

 which this was proved and explained, may be curious to know 

 whether we have Bince made any alteration or improvement in 

 the plan. To which I may reply, None whatever. There has 

 been a strong current of air passing over the ice day and night, 

 summer and winter, ever since; but some have misunderstood 

 the plan so far as to suppose thai the air-currents are allowed 

 to reach the ice itself." That was the lucky mistake which 

 brought so much and such good grist to my mill, and did I 

 not grind it as well as any ice was ever ground, or pounded by 

 pond or brook ? 



"To suppose that air-currents were allowed toreach the ice itself. 

 That, indeed, would be worse than the whole mode of stifling, by 

 which so much ice was formerly wasted." Of course it would. 



Mr. Bailey, of Nuneham Park, gave a plan this time last year 

 (Vol. SXVIL, page 379), of an ice-house, ventilated as I de- 

 scribed then, 1851, but not quite so efficient. Mr. Bailey calls it 

 an American plan that is in use at Lord Lilford's,in Northamp- 

 tonshire, and Lord Jersey's, in Oxfordshire, " for carrying off 

 the condensed moisture, which hourly would be exerting its 

 wasting influence on the ice." That is to say, the principle on 

 which Mr. Tollemache's architect built the ice-house in Cheshire 

 was applied by these noble lords and their agents to the old ice- 

 house, just as was done at Shrubland fourteen or fifteen years 

 ago, and with the same result. 



You will see by the plan that these noblemen did not adopt 

 the marrow of the American plan, by not letting off the air by 

 the highest part of the roof, the crown of the arch over the ice, 

 so they have to regulate the ventilation to the state of the 

 weather. But the Canadian of this, our current Volume, page 

 31, has it in the true American style ; but from that description 

 those who are not much acquainted with the forms and fashions 

 of ice-houBes may find it very difficult to understand the whole 

 process. I recommended the architect's plan very much at the 

 time ; also, the conversion of the old ice-house to that principle ; 

 and there is another most useful feature attached to this present 

 Canadian ice-house which it would be treason on the part of a 

 captain not to recommend and bring more prominently before 

 us, if only to prevent another twelve-years war on a wrong 

 scent : therefore, 1 do hereby recommend with all my force, that 

 ice-houBes should henceforth be built in this country above- 

 ground, and on the plan and principle of that Canadian ice- 

 house at page 31 of this Volume of the Journal. It is far 

 more difficult to preserve ice in Canada than in England, seeing 

 the summers there are so much warmer than with us. 



The ice-house in Cheshire was built aboveground like a 

 cottage so much in length, breadth, and depth, with brick walls, 

 two end gables, and a span-roof. The ice was filled-in to the 

 height of the side walls, and was covered with straw ; the whole 

 space in the roof was empty, and a ventilator in each gable, near 

 the ridge, secured a current of air through the empty space 

 from end to end without touching the ice at all, for warm air 

 will never sink an inch into a cooler stratum, if it has a free 

 course on the higher level, as in that instance. 



