THE COTTON TRADE.-ICE HOUSES. 
23 
ence, is the impregnation of the queen. This is al¬ 
ways done high on the wing, and when once ef¬ 
fected, it is operative for an entire season. 
The drones appear with the commencement of 
the swarming season. The first swarms go off with 
the old queen, whose impregnation is effectual from 
the last season, and for the prosperity of such 
swarms, no drones are needed ; but not so with the 
young queens, that sally forth with after swarms. 
If there were no drones about the apiary, the hives 
would soon become entirely depopulated. It is of 
no consequence whether there be drones in every 
hive ; for if there be one hive out of six, that 
contains them, it is probable that she would become 
prolific. 
On the second or third day, after entering her new 
habitation, the queen takes an aerial flight, in search 
of drones, and having effected her object, returns 
to her domicil, and does not again leave until the 
following spring, when she goes olF with the first 
swarm, lays the foundation of a successor to her 
sovereignty, and winds up her career in old age and 
death. In most species of winged insects, im¬ 
pregnation is effected, while on the vjing , conse¬ 
quently this theory is plausible in itself; but when 
we take into consideration, that the drones disap¬ 
pear , as soon as the swarming season is past, our 
doubts ought to be entirely removed, if any exist. 
The drones, by a natural instinct, are ever flitting 
aloft, high on the wing in the vicinity of the api¬ 
ary, with no apparent object • hence, when the 
queen sallies forth, she cannot miss the object of 
her excursion. Did a less number of drones exist, 
she would, perhaps, be frustrated in her object, and 
the colony, or family of bees be annihilated in con¬ 
sequence thereof. 
The destruction of drones is effected as soon as 
there is no further necessity for them, which is at 
the end of the swarming season. This fact is 
strong proof of the object of their existence, as 
above stated. They are put out of the way by 
force, the workers clipping their wings , and casting 
them out of the hives. Perchance, some hives may 
permit the drones to exist till late in the season, for 
some purpose known only to themselves; but in 
general, they are destroyed at the termination of 
swarming. T. B. Miner. 
Ravenswood , L. I., January , 1848. 
THE COTTON TRADE. 
Professor C. F. McCay, of the University of 
Georgia, in the December No. of that sterling pe¬ 
riodical, Hunks Merchants 1 Magazine, thus esti¬ 
mates the cotton crop of 1847, in the United States : 
New Orleans and Texas, . . 1,050,000 Bales. 
Mobile,. 425,000 “ 
Florida,. 155,000 “ 
Georgia,. 245,000 “ 
South Carolina,. 350,000 “ 
Other places,. 25,000 “ 
__ C ( 
2,250,000 
The demand for 1848 he estimates thus :— 
Wants of the United States, . 440,000 “ 
do Great Britain, . 1,400,000 “ 
do in France of Am. Cot., 300,000 
Other exports from U. S. and Eng’d, 370,000 
2,510,000 “ 
By comparing the supply and demand, it will be 
seen that they promise to be nearly the same. Prices 
may, therefore, be expected to be near their average 
rate, neither high nor low. If they should fall be¬ 
low this at any time, the increased consumption, with 
the present diminished stocks, would immediately 
bring up prices; while the experience of the last 
year shows that they cannot be kept higher with¬ 
out stopping the English factories, and thereby de¬ 
creasing the consumption below the probable sup¬ 
plies. The prospects of the planter are good. A 
fair crop at fair prices is better for him than a large 
crop at low prices, or a short crop at high prices. 
The golden mean is better either than abundance or 
scarcity. 
ICE HOUSES. 
Since ice has been regarded an article of neces¬ 
sity almost as much as a luxury, during the ener¬ 
vating and oppressive heats of our long summers, 
so much has been written on the construction of 
ice houses, it may be presumed that but little 
can be said on the subject which is new. We still 
remain unaltered in our opinion (see p. 280, of our 
fourth volume), that the success of keeping ice de¬ 
pends entirely on a dry atmosphere, thorough drain¬ 
age, and free, uninterrupted ventilation. We con¬ 
demn the practice of constructing any part of the 
main chamber, or receptacle for the ice, below the 
surface of the ground, or of attempting to screen 
the roof of the house from the sun by the planting 
of trees. It will be remembered that we have al¬ 
ready remarked that shade trees attract moisture, 
and that moisture melts ice ten times as fast as a hot 
wind or its exposure to the sun. Neither do we 
approve of the sides and back of the ice house be¬ 
ing of earth, as that is moist too ; and, instead of 
preserving the ice, as is often believed, it has a ten¬ 
dency to cause it to melt. An ice house, then, may 
be placed in an open, airy situation, on the bank of 
a lake or stream, or any other convenient spot, 
above the level of the ground, with good drainage 
and perfect ventilation. If well filled with solid 
blocks of ice, cut out of as large dimensions as con¬ 
venient—for the larger they are the better they 
keep—these are all the essentials requisite to ensuie 
complete success. As a proof of this, we have 
only to refer our readers to the buildings on Rock¬ 
land Lake, near the west bank of the Hudson, and 
the old Congregational meeting house, at Wenham 
Lake, between Ipswich and Salem, in Massachu¬ 
setts. These buildings are all of wood, lined with 
sawdust or tan.bark, and standing high and entirely 
above the ground. It is the same with the large 
public ice houses in this city. 
The best, cheapest, and safest mode of construct¬ 
ing an ice house for this country, is, to make a 
wooden frame, with posts about a foot thick and 
six or eight feet high, and then to plank up inside 
and out, filling the space between with sawdust, 
tan bark, or pulverized charcoal, over which a roof 
should be built with a pitch of at least 45°, 
made of rough slabs, small saplings, or other mate¬ 
rials, and finally well thatched with straw of a 
thickness of twelve inches to a foot and a half. 
Whether the soil be porous or not, we wmuld con¬ 
struct a plank or slab floor, about a foot above the 
ground, sufficiently open to admit a free passage of 
