86 



THE SOUTHERN 



PLANTER. 



For the Southern Planter. 

 SOWING CLOVER SEED. 



Mr. Editor, — I have seen several communi- 

 cations in your paper recommending clover seed 

 to be sown late in the spring. I concur in that 

 suggestion, which is sustained by several years' 

 experience in my farming operations. 1 sow 

 my clover seed late in April, after all danger 

 of hard frosts is over, and roll or harrow it in, 

 having. first sprinkled it with water and rolled 

 it in plaster. Last spring I sowed several 

 bushels about the first of May on some very 

 late wheat, and harrowed it in with a two-horse 

 harrow. The wheat was not injured, and a fine 

 stand of clover was secured on very poor land, 

 baked nearly as hard as a brickbat. The har- 

 row did not tear up sufficient ground to cover 

 half the seed. The whole field was plastered 

 immediately after harvest, at the rate of half 

 a bushel to the acre. On oat-land I sow the 

 clover seed sometimes after the first harrowing 

 and harrow it in, and sometimes after the oats 

 are two or three inches high, and roll it in — 

 always dressing the field with plaster as soon 

 as the clover is up. The plaster is nearly as 

 beneficial to the oats as the clover. 



The object is to avoid the late spring frosts, 

 which frequently kill the young clover, to put 

 the seed in the ground where it can grow, and 

 to nourish it while young with its specific food, 

 plaster. 



As an experiment I sowed a few acres of 

 wheat early in September last with clover seed. 

 It came up well and has thus far stood the 

 winter finely. A large farmer in the neighbor- 

 hood has practised early fall sowing of clover 

 for several years with general success. I, how- 

 ever, decidedly prefer late spring sowing, as 

 more certain. If the fall is dry or the winter 

 early and severe, you are apt to lose your young 

 clover. 



C. C. B. 



Rockbridge, Jan. 30, 18-55. 



For the Southern Planter. 



ICE HOUSES: 



There are many conflicting opinions, even 

 iimong people of experience, about the proper 

 construction of ice houses. I venture to sub- 

 mit my views, with all due deference to those 

 of others. 



Chemistry and common sense would teach, 

 that the ice house, above the ice, ought not to 

 "be too hot for a man to stay in, and that the 

 external atmosphere ought to be excluded from 

 the ice. True, ice exposed to the open air will 

 keep better, perhaps, than will ice in a box in 



the open air, without being enveloped in a non- 

 conductor of heat. I have tested the matter. 

 A lump of ice suspended in a basket that will 

 let off the water without being wrapped in any 

 thing, will melt less than it will in such a box. 

 Evaporation is a cooling process, and there may 

 be something in the evaporation from the basket 

 so suspended. 



Everybody knows that ice standing in water 

 will melt; hence the custom of digging a pit 

 hole at the bottom of the house to receive the 

 dribbling water from the ice. But too little 

 care is taken to prevent the infiltration of wa 

 ter from the surrounding earth. There ought 

 to be a high roof just above the eaves and ex 

 tending under the gable ends of the house. 



There ought to be as free a ventilation as 

 possible above the plank floor of the house. 

 This may be easily accomplished by slats after 

 the fashion of window-blinds, opposite each 

 other, in the gable ends. 



My ice house was constructed many years 

 ago. It never did keep ice well until the year 

 1854. One of my predecessors had, in addi 

 tion to a sink hole at the bottom to receive the 

 water, cut a blind ditch leading through a steep 

 bluff, as additional security against water. In 

 1846 I filled the house heaping full. It only 

 held out until July. Thinking that possibly 

 the blind ditch might have got choked I dug 

 down to it, and opened and poured water into 

 the house until I saw it running through the 

 ditch at the outlet. I again filled, and still it 

 did not last through the summer. I next got 

 a notion that the warm atmospheric air, regur - 

 gitating from the blind ditch, might be at fault. 

 I filled the sink hole with solid clay nearly to 

 the top and just above where the blind ditch 

 opened into it ; then threw in stones, pebbles 

 and sand a foot and a half deep, with corn 

 stalks, and my ice kept nearly to October. If 

 I had had my high roof and slats above the 

 floor constructed early in the spring, I believe 

 that I could have had it at Christmas, for be- 

 fore I constructed them the infiltration from 

 the dripping eaves had melted the ice on two 

 sides down to the bottom. I took the addi- 

 tional precaution of putting sheds sloping just 

 beneath the slats in the gable ends down to the 

 height of a man's head, and found that they 

 not only answered the purpose of breaking the 

 force of the morning and afternoon's sun, but 

 furnished convenient shelters for carts, ploughs, 

 &c. Two hands constructed them in two or 

 three hours, the materials being ready. 



Fixed air, or more correctly speaking, car- 

 bonic acid gas, sometimes settles in ice houses, 

 as well as wells, rendering them incapable of 

 supporting respiration. This evil may be very 



