442 The Principles of Fruit-growing. 
down, and spread the contamination to the entire 
sample. The fruit should be cooled down somewhat 
before it is placed in cold storage, especially if there 
is much of it, otherwise it raises the temperature 
of the compartment. 
The requisite features in a domestic iced storage 
house are set forth as follows by Hexamer:* “To 
preserve fruit or retard its ripening, it has to be 
stored in pure, dry, cold air. These conditions can 
be produced in various ways. But the simplest and 
least expensive method for farm use is to build a 
two-story ice house, the ground floor of which is for 
the storage of fruit and the upper for ice. The most 
important part of such a house is the proper con- 
struction of the dividing floor upon which the ice 
rests. The timbers, the size of which depends on the 
quantity of ice to be supported by them, are so ar- 
ranged as to have narrow openings between one 
another to permit the cold air from the ice cham- 
ber proper to descend to the storage room below, 
and also to facilitate the dripping of the water from 
the melting ice. 
“To prevent the water from falling on the fruit, 
an additional floor or roof has to be constructed 
under the dividing floor. The best material for this 
purpose is galvanized, corrugated sheet iron, arranged 
so that all the water which falls upon it flows into a 
gutter connected with a leader, through which it is 
carried into the main drain. Dryness in the storage 
*Dy. F. M, Hexamer, “Cold Storage Fruit House,” Amer. Agric., Jan. 30, 
1897, 135. 
