1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
BUILDING AN ICE HOUSE. 
How Best to Keep Ice. 
Part II. 
PRINCIPLE OF ICE PRESERVATION.—Ice can 
only melt by warmth; warmth can only be communi¬ 
cated to it by contact with water or air. Then if we 
can protect a mass of solid ice against contact with 
air or water, or any other substance that is warmer 
than 32 degrees, the ice will not melt. It is impossible 
for it to melt except by contact with heat. Then if 
we take any mass of solid ice and cover it with any 
substance through which air or heat cannot penetrate 
we can keep the ice solid for as long a time as is 
equivalent to the preservation of these simple condi¬ 
tions. From these principles we may suggest these 
arrangements. We select a perfectly dry and well- 
drained location on solid earth and build on it a house 
or shed having an air-tight foundation, air-tight 
walls thick enough, or so made as to keep out the heat 
and the air, and protect the ice at the top in the same 
way from all moisture or a:r. Then the ice will keep 
until we use it. But it is not necessary to keep ice 
for ever or for more than a year, so if we can only 
get anywhere near these conditions we may keep ice 
from one Winter to another very easily. 
A PRIMITIVE ICE STORE.—I once packed ice in 
a heap thrown up on the bare frozen ground in the 
Winter, packed solidly and frozen into a solid mass by 
throwing water on it as the heap was made, and then 
covering the heap with the waste tan-bark of a tan¬ 
nery near by. To protect this covering from rain in 
the Summer I covered it with straw, and the stack 
lasted out two years, supplying a dairy of 15 cows 
those two seasons. I have known ice kept in an old 
well which had gone dry by filling it in the coldest 
part of the Winter and covering it with two tight 
floors. It was a Vermont Yankee who did this, and 
he told me that it was a com¬ 
mon practice in that enter¬ 
prising State. 
CONSTRUCTING AN ICE 
HOUSE.—It is a good thing 
to do things thoroughly, and 
so we will describe such a 
house as may be satisfactory 
in every way. Set up posts 
in the ground in a dry loca¬ 
tion, and board them on each 
side with double boards. Fill 
the space (10 inches is 
enough) with sawdust, up to 
the roof and cover it with a 
tight roof. It is best not to 
have a door but steps up out¬ 
side to get into it at a gable 
to take out the ice. It is well 
to have a door through which 
the ice may be packed in, 
however. Cut the ice into even 
shaped blocks of such a size 
that two one way may be cov¬ 
ered by three the other way. 
The idea is to make a solid 
block of ice, which may have 
all the cracks filled by sweep¬ 
ing the dust of ice made in the packing into the 
cracks, so the whole mass will freeze solidly together. 
Blocks 16 inches by 24, or 12 by 18 inches will pack in 
this way. Cut the ice as soon as it is six or eight 
inches thick; it is easier to handle it and cut it then, 
and it will be solid anyhow, for it is another strange 
habit of ice to freeze together, if only brought into 
contact for a moment. This is called regelation. 
COVERING THE ICE.—The covering should be not 
less than 16 inches thick, and the more air that blows 
over the top of the covering the better the ice will 
keep. This is due to the evaporation of the moisture 
from the top producing cold, as anyone may prove by 
blowing on his hand when it is damp and warm. 
There is a principle involved in this which is as in¬ 
teresting as that of freezing and thawing. But some 
of our young readers may search this up for them¬ 
selves, and then they will be able to boss the job of 
taking charge of the ice house. If all these things are 
done there is no secret otherwise, and it does not mat¬ 
ter how it is done, either. You may cut a tree down 
with an ax, or a jack-Knife, or a saw, it does not mat¬ 
ter a bit, if it is only got down. So with tnis ice busi¬ 
ness; one may spend a lot of money and have a fine 
ice house, and unless these rules are complied with it 
won’t keep ice; while any kind of a rough affair will 
do if it only does the business in the way required. 
COST OF BUILDING.—An efficient ice house may 
be built ior a few dollars, but if one wish an orna¬ 
mental one with a cupola, and a weathercock on the 
top, it is ali the same, $1,000 will not make a house 
keep ice unless these simple rules are perfectly car¬ 
ried out, and $20 will, if they are. It may be repeated, 
perhaps with advantage, that the primary rules are 
these: Cut the ice on a dry cold day. Cut it into the 
right-shaped blocks to make a solid mass. Have a 
dry floor on the ground. Have no places for air to get 
in under it. Put a foot of dry packing under the ice. 
Pack the ice solid. Have sufficient packing around 
and over the ice to keep air from it. Have plenty of 
covering on the top with ample ventilation; let air 
blow in freely but don’t let sunshine in, and keep the 
top covering dry. All the rest may be as you please. 
THE FOUNDATION—'ihe foundation is of the 
greatest importance in an ice house; that is, it is of 
course no more so practically than any other part, but 
it is more likely to be neglected or spoiled by useless 
precaution. It should be the solid dry ground, and on 
a sufficiently raised spot, so that no surface water can 
drain into it. It is a very reasonable thing to con¬ 
sider that if drainage is needed there will soon be no 
ice left in the house, for once the ice begins to melt 
it is all up with the concern, for air will force its way 
in then. There will be positively no drainage if the 
house is properly well-made and the ice properly 
packed. There will not be sufficient dampness even 
to wet the under bed of sawdust on which the ice 
rests. It will be desirable as an extra precaution to 
dig a shallow trench around the house to carry off 
the drip of rain from the roof. No provision need be 
made inside the house as a drain there may possibly 
become an inlet for air under some conditions of the 
wind or weather, and thus cause the ice to melt. In 
the event that a floor is thought desirable, it should 
be of cement and a two-inch plank should be bedded 
in the cement for a sill to nail the inside wall against. 
The rules for making a perfect silo will serve pre¬ 
cisely for the making of an ice house. h. s. 
LITTLE TREES IN LITTLE HOLES. 
An Account of the Sfringfe/low Experiment. 
At Fig. 251 is shown the picture of a pear, apple, 
plum and peach tree dug August 20, just six months 
after they were set, straight sticks with no roots ex¬ 
cept four to six inches of clean tap, except the pear, 
which was two years old, and stub-pruned. The 
trees were planted in one-inch holes made by a sledge 
hammer and steel bar on virgin ground, as noted in 
your columns last Spring. After planting, a circle 
was chopped just deep enough to kill the grass for 
about 18 inches every way from the trees, and a 
shovelful or manure scattered around each one. 
About a month later I applied 1,000 pounds of cotton¬ 
seed meal to the 3,000 trees, giving every one a large 
handful, sprinkled thinly over the chopped circle. To 
make the test more severe the circles were not hoed 
again until the trees were dug, nor was the orchard 
mowed but once, on July 10. I started a man to hoe¬ 
ing the circles for the second time August 23; three 
days after the trees were dug, as many of them con¬ 
tained large bunches of grass, though generally the 
ground, being new, was quite clean. The tree roots 
were immature when dug, and most of the fibrous 
roots were broken off in digging, the ground being 
hard and dry. 
The season was good from time of planting to dig¬ 
ging, except a seven weeks’ drought from the last 
week in May to July 14, when rain fell. I am con¬ 
fident that the strong roots had penetrated quite as 
deep below where broken off, as shown in picture, as 
the trees are high, for I once traced pear roots 3% 
feet deep on trees not as large as these, at my old 
home at Hitchcock, that were planted in January and 
dug on July 4. As stated before, this is a dry coun¬ 
try, far less favorable to tree growth than the North 
or East, with an elevation of 1,200 feet above sea 
level, and 250 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. The 
ground is so hard, and in places rocky, that a post- 
hole cap nowhere be dug, with anything bpt a sharp- 
671 
ened crowbar. In driving the holes for the trees, in 
many cases, the sledge hammer was unable to force 
the steel bar through the rock, and the trees were 
set on apparently soliu rock. Some of these I marked 
and can now see no difference between their growth 
and the rest. I confess that I am puzzled to under¬ 
stand how they have done it, for their roots must 
have penetrated the rock itself. Water, where these 
trees were grown, is fully 50 feet below the surface. 
The peach tree shown without leaves is one I killed 
by putting dissolved arsenic and bran for the grass¬ 
hoppers, too close to the body. With this evidence 
before them ought not intelligent men to lay asme 
their prejudices in favor of long roots, deeply-uug 
soil and large holes, all entailing great expense in 
planting orchards, and recognize tne great truth so 
fully demonstrated herein, that a close root-pruned 
tree is practically a seedling, and like all other seed¬ 
lings in the vast domain of nature, finds the most 
congenial conditions in firm ground with as little dis¬ 
turbance i f the subsoil as possible? I omitted to say 
that the apple trees were small seedlings one-quarter 
to one-half-inch in diameter, and the peach little 
June-budded trees. lr. m. stringfeixow. 
Texas. 
MORE HONESTY IN THE NURSER Y BUSINESS 
E. D. G.’s letter on page 623 on the frauds and mis¬ 
takes of nurserymen induces me to write briefly on 
this old subject. I have been intending to do it all 
Summer. Many years ago I knew an able man who 
had been a successful tree salesman, but who had 
“been converted” and had quit the business. He con¬ 
fessed that he formerly bought whole blocks of refuse 
trees for a song, and heeled them in hit or miss, and 
filled all orders from the same pile, labeled with the 
names desired. His confession implanted in me a sus¬ 
picion concerning the hon¬ 
esty of the entire calling, but 
I wish here to state that the 
experience of late yeans has 
largely removed the bad im¬ 
pression. Due allowance 
must be made for uninten¬ 
tional errors, but growers 
generally have learned that 
it pays to be honest and ex¬ 
ceedingly careful, and that 
fraud and continued misrep¬ 
resentation means poor busi¬ 
ness, or no business at all. 
The millenium has not yet 
arrived, nor are the knaves 
all dead, but the standard of 
honesty in the nursery busi¬ 
ness has been considerably 
raised. 
I desired last Spring to buy 
for customers and neighbors 
some sweet cherries in quan¬ 
tity of certain sorts. It so 
happened that the stock of 
sweet cherries of the kinds 
wanted was short every¬ 
where, and prices greatly ad¬ 
vanced. I wrote in all directions, and to many grow¬ 
ers. In several instances my remittances were re¬ 
turned with explanation that the firms were sold out 
of the kinds mentioned or could only partly fill the 
order. They could have shipped other stock similar 
in appearance, but they did not, and I am now con¬ 
vinced that as to honesty the nurserymen are on the 
average well up to any other business men, preachers 
not excepted. Novelties are now as a rule treated 
with extreme caution. Growers buy everything that 
comes out sometimes at great expense ($10 a foot for 
grafting wood, etc.), and do not offer the sorts until 
by top-grafting or budding they have been tested and 
found desirable. Then, too, papers like The R. N.-Y., 
which have no nurseries of their own to boom for 
business purposes, and which sift their advertisers 
with a fine sieve, faithfully look out for us by telling 
us all about the new things as soon as they find it out. 
Hudson, N. Y. j. y. p. 
DIMENSIONS OF ICE HOUSE—A ton of ice will 
occupy a space of about 40 cubic feet. An ice house 
16 feet square will hold 60 tons if the ice is 10 feet 
deep. The house should be two feet higher than this 
so as to allow for a covering on the ice of two feet. 
This will be amply safe. Any kind of a shelter, so 
that the rain does not fall on the ice, is sufficient. 
Any kind of a structure which will hold the protect¬ 
ing covering by which contact of air with the mass 
of ice is prevented will answer the purpose. Let us 
consider this part of the subject from the point of 
view of me principles involved, as we have In regard 
to the ice itself. Then we find these facts by which 
we may be guided and it does not matter in the least 
of what materials the ice house is constructed or the 
form of it. We may study each one for himself what¬ 
ever is most convenient in regard to the whole busi¬ 
ness, and these are the principles upon which the 
structure of ice houses must be based. h. s. 
