191L 
TI-IE RURAL REW-YORKER 
1113 
CONCRETE FOR ICEHOUSE. 
You have asked several times for ex¬ 
perience with concrete icehouses. We 
have one for the most part concrete. 
We believe a farmer’s icehouse should 
be near the back door, or near where 
the bulk of the ice is to be used. We 
had the advantage of sloping ground, 
but could not make it entirely under¬ 
ground, as it would make too long 
and deep ditching for draining. So we 
went three to four feet below the sur¬ 
face. Wood does not last long in such 
condition, So we decided to use concrete 
except for the south side above ground. 
Our house is 12x18x10 high, the south 
concrete wall being about four feet 
high. The earth is banked up against 
the other three walls as much as we 
could. Fig. 451 gives an idea of the 
location, which has much to do with ice 
keeping. 
The walls were not “formed” except 
in the inside, until we got above the 
surface. We were careful in digging 
out and so let the concrete go right 
against the earth for one side form. 
They run from 10 inches to about eight 
inches at the top. We put in a batch 
of concrete (made with coarse brook 
gravel) and then tamped in what coarse 
stone we could. Not wanting quite so 
large an ice room at present we cut off 
six feet on one end for a cool storage 
room. This we did by standing up 12- 
foot chestnut planks on end. By put¬ 
ting a sill on the bottom with a good 
cleat on the top and several old beams 
on the top of the wall it was very little 
work, and will be less when we want 
to take it out. The planks are not 
sun struck it except on the west stone 
wall, of course late in the afternoon. 
You ought to have seen that ice get 
away from those stone walls as soon 
as the weather began to get a little 
warm. They were heavy walls, too, 15 
to 18 inches thick. The sides with the 
boards hardly seemed to go half as fast. 
Whether it was being above ground, 
the stone wall, or location, I don't know, 
but the way that ice melted made us 
hesitate at first about using concrete for 
another icehouse. Walter garabrant. 
New Jersey. 
Keeping Apples in Delaware. 
T. C. W., Leice/t, Del .—Would you advise 
me as to the best way of keeping apples, 
mostly Ben Davis, on a small scale, chiefly 
for family use? We have a concrete cellar 
under the dwelling house, it being 10x10, 
eight feet deep, with four small windows 
for ventilation. We also have an icehouse 
12x12, 12 feet deep, eight feet below the 
ground, with ventilation at the peak. We 
have been using it for white potatoes for 
two years; they keep finely. Shall we bar¬ 
rel and bury in the soil? We have eight or 
10 barrels and a few Iveiffer pears. 
If T. C. W.’s apples were properly 
sprayed so that they are perfectly free 
from fungus, they will keep all right in that 
concrete cellar by maintaining a tempera¬ 
ture of 40 degrees as nearly as possible. 
Keep windows closed in all warm weather 
and open when cold. Use a thermometer 
and watch closely. e. g. Packard. 
Delaware. 
If ills cellar can be kept uniformly cool 
and is not too dry, apples should keep quite 
well there, and the same might bo said of 
tin* icehouse, but they should be stored 
only in tight packages and not moved when 
frozen. The custom here is to pack in 
double head barrels and store under a shed 
with a northern exposure until freezing 
weather, then remove to cellar. The usual 
custom when burying is to dig a trench not 
wider than two feet nor deeper than 18 
inches, which is lined with straw to pre¬ 
vent the fruit coming in contact with the 
soil, and cover lightly with s.oii until 
early Winter, then cover about one foot 
deep. Apples seem to keep best very near 
the freezing point and not exposed to air 
that will cause them to shrivel. 
Delaware. f. c. Bancroft. 
The most successful man in keeping 
apples in my acquaintance is an old gen¬ 
tleman in North Carolina. lie has given 
N. 
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CONCRETE ICEHOUSE. Fig. 451. 
nailed at alb We put a floor over the 
cool room, and this makes a handy and 
good place for the sawdust. It pays 
also, as we have to pay $1 a load be¬ 
side the carting. Last Winter we kept 
apples and vegetables in this room all 
Winter. I used a lantern during the 
cold snaps. We left the sawdust against 
the inside until ready to put in the ice, 
filling the bin part full from the other 
side. 
But I hear some one say what about 
the concrete? Ilow did the ice keep? 
I cannot see that it does not keep as 
well as the average house that I have 
seen. The "first year it melted very fast 
from the bottom. We had left the 
floor just the hard gravel with saw¬ 
dust on top. Not liking this we cleaned 
it off well and spread several inches o( 
concrete over the bottom. I was care¬ 
ful to grade it so the slope was righf 
for good drainage. This seemed to 
stop the trouble. In filling the house 
we always leave room for four to six 
inches of sawdust on the side. This we 
fill up as wc work up. Then we cover 
the top as soon as full, not waiting for 
a week or two of warm weather to run 
the water all down through and cement 
the cakes together so they will not 
come apart. The upper part of the 
south side was lined against the nailers 
with old boards to keep the sawdust 
away from the weatherboarding. I do 
not see that the ice melts any faster on 
the sides next the concrete than the 
other two. If anything it melts faster 
next to the store room. Whether the 
ice would save as well if the house was 
entirely above ground and built of con¬ 
crete alone I cannot say. It might need 
a lining to make a dead-air space as a 
non-conductor. Our icehouse has no 
protection from the sun, so it has the 
full benefit of heat in this line. 
I think there is some difference in 
effect on the ice, whether the wall is 
concrete or stone. At our old home we 
had an improvised icehouse in a cellar 
basement. Two sides were stone walls 
—west and north. The other two were 
boards on' both sides of the studs, filled 
with sawdust when the rats would con¬ 
sent to let it stay there. The whole 
house or room was back under so no 
me Bonum apples in good eating condition 
in May. Bonum is a Fall apple, and a 
native of North Carolina, and the late T. 
T. Lyons of Michigan once said to me that 
he considered it the best Fall apple in the ! 
country. The same man gave me once I 
Baldwin apples in fine shape the tenth of 
August, lie did not grow these there, but 
got them in the Fall from Niagara Co., 
N. Y. lie has a building built with double 
walls packed with sawdust, and with a ven¬ 
tilator above and several pipe ventilators 
at the base, but no windows whatever. 
With the fruit once in, he closes up tight 
in day time and opens up the ventilators 
below and above at night, closing before 
sunrise. In this way he maintains a very 
cool temperature Winter and Summer, and 
going into his house in Summer it feels 
almost like a cold storage building. His 
idea, and the correct one, is that to main¬ 
tain a cool temperature he must retain the 
night air and exclude the day air. With 
apples in headed barrels a temperature sev¬ 
eral degree's below 32 is far safer for apples 
than several degrees above 32. Some years 
ago I was lecturing at an institute in a 
town in western Maryland. The apple topic 
had been up in the morning, and at noon 
a man said to me, “Come around to my 
house and T will show you how I keep 
apples.” I went, and he took me to the 
back porch of his house nex.t the kitchen 
and showed me a barrel of apples with a 
gunny sack thrown over the open head. 
The mercury at the time was hovering 
down near zero, but he said that he had 
found he could have apples in better shape 
out there than anywhere else. The fact 
was that they were frozen and kept frozen 
till wanted in the house. This is rather too 
radical a treatment. Now if in that cellar 
with the windows for ventilation you have 
nothing else that would be injured, you can 
barrel the apples and put them in there and 
keep the windows open at night and closed 
in day time, darkening the Cellar with gunny 
sack curtains on the windows. In this way 
you can maintain a constant cool tempera¬ 
ture in the cellar. But if you want to 
keep other things there this may not be 
practicable, though Irish potatoes barreled 
in the same way would not be hurt. I 
kept Irish potatoes here last Winter in a 
fireless outhouse with only excelsior packed 
over them in the barrel and the whole 
covered with a gunny sack. If you do not 
case to treat the cellar in this way, then 
put the apples in the icehouse as the next 
best place. w. f. massey. 
Maryland. 
I would advise placing the apples in bar¬ 
rels and head up properly the same as for 
shipment, and store either in cellar or out¬ 
building. I had them keep with me last 
year until April in very good condition, 
stored in a packing house, resorting in 
January with but little loss. Thev should 
be picked early, handle with care and 
placed in barrels when cool to insure best 
results. c. barker. 
New York. 
A Pierce Boiler will give you less 
trouble than any one of your stoves 
and more heat in all your rooms at less 
cost than all your stoves put together. 
Do you know the difference between steam and hot water heat? 
Do you know the shortcomings of hot air? Do you know the 
kind of heat you should have right now in that 
cold house of yours and how simple a matter it 
is to put in an up-to-date, money and labor saving 
equipment—an equipment that will keep your 
cellar cool for the storage of vegetables but will 
keep every nook and corner of your house warm 
in the severest winter weather ? We have written 
a hook on the subject which every farmer should 
read. It tells in simple, non-technical language 
What 
Heat 
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The Kant-leak Kleet keeps 
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Ask your dealer for Genasco Roofing 
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