142 THE CULTIVATOR. April, 
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India on ice, from which a profit is realized. Live ani¬ 
mals, for the supply of fresh provisions, are no longer 
carried to sea in coops and stalls, but dead; they go in 
ice. It is said that the India trade is greatly enlarged 
at Boston, and that the ice business has secured the re¬ 
sult; that a majority of the vessels bearing India cargoes 
are sent to Boston, because her ice affords a return freight. 
Yisiting Fresh Pond, to view the operations of cutting 
and storing ice, 1 found that the parties engaged in the 
trade, had each a given surface, or u privelege,” to work 
upon, accurately laid out by metes and bounds, and de¬ 
scribed by deeds in writing, and that those boundary 
lines are exactly observed. I was first introduced to 
Mr. Tudor, from whom I derived much information, and 
various statistics relative to the business. I next met 
N. J. Wyeth, Esq., and had the pleasure of some 
conversation with him; but finding him much occupied, 
and that he had already been actively engaged four suc¬ 
cessive days and nights in securing his crop of ice, with¬ 
out sleep during the time, I did not choose to tax him 
further. Mr. Wyeth has distinguished himself by the 
use of steam power in elevating ice from the pond to the 
receiving doors of liis ice-houses, and in dressing the 
blocks of ice to accurate shape and dimensions, for pack¬ 
ing. He has also constructed massive ice-houses of brick, 
the walls of which are four feet thick from outside to 
inside, inclosing two sets of air spaces. They are costly, 
but have the advantage of durability. Mr. Wyeth has 
been a distinguished adventurer, has twice crossed the 
Rocky Mountains to Oregon, made investments there, is 
evidently a man of varied knowledge and superior abili¬ 
ties, and great energy of purpose. 
Passing on, to the works of Messrs. Gage, Hittinger St 
Co., I found Mr. Hittinger very polite, and ready to show 
me everything, He had filled all his ice-houses at Fresh 
Pond, which hold 40,000 tons, and was then finishing a 
stack of ice, of 20,000 tons. He explained to me the 
various operations of cutting and housing the ice, which 
I will attempt to describe, though a description is not 
easily given, by a novice. 
When ice has formed of sufficient thickness for cutting 
and storing, the first operation is to remove the snow, if 
any there be covering the ice, which is done by light 
wooden scrapers, managed by one man and one horse. 
If then a surface of snow-ice, or ice formed of snow and 
water, presents itself, it is removed, not being deemed 
ed valuable. It is separated from the clear blue ice by 
the “ ice-plane,” a machine drawn by two horses, and 
which shaves two inches deep an$ twenty-two inches 
wide, at a time, having guides to it which run in grooves 
previously made in the ice by the “ ice-cutter.” The 
chips made by the ice-plane, are removed in the same 
way that snow is. All things being now ready for taking 
the clear blue ice, the first thing done is to get a straight 
line the whole length of the body of ice to be cut, which 
is accomplished by setting a stake at one corner of it, 
and starting from its opposite corner, with a long straight- 
edged board and a hand ice-marker, the operator places 
the edge of his board in a range with his starting point 
and stake, makes a grove in the ice the length of the 
board, then moves it along its length towards the stake 
again, places it in range and continues the grove, and so 
on, till the whole line is obtained. It is imnortant that 
this line should be straight, as the regularity of all the 
cakes of ice to be cut is governed by it; and if they are 
not of uniform size, they will not pack properly in the 
houses. This grove is then deepened by a marker drawn 
by one horse. Then follows the “ ice-cutter,” a machine 
something in the form of a boy’s sled, made wholly of iron 
and steel, its runners being a series of steel cutting chisels, 
making grooves two inches deep at a time, and twenty- 
two inches apart, one runner going in the groove pre¬ 
viously made, and the other making a new groove. The 
cutter is passed back and forth until the whole body of 
ice to be secured is grooved into strips twenty-two inches 
wide, and of about two-thirds the depth of the ice, and 
then the same operation is performed at right angles to 
these groves, checking the ice off into blocks twenty-two 
inches wide, each way, 
The ice is now to be separated from the main body, 
and conducted to the houses for storage. The outer 
grooves, on one end and one side of the body of ice thus 
prepared, are opened clear down, by an ice-saw worked 
by one man, and another man with a sharp blade or 
chisel, about one-third the size of a shovel blade, and 
having a long handle, presses his instrument into every 
third groove, each way, so that blocks of ice five and a 
half feet wide, each way, are readily separated from the 
main body. These larger blocks contain three grooves, 
each way, and nine smaller blocks, twenty-two inches 
wide each way. Blocks are taken from the main body 
of this size, because it is a convenient size to float to the 
shore, and just about right in weight for one horse to 
elevate upon an inclined plane from the water to the re¬ 
ception platform beside the ice-house. The blocks are 
conducted by men with hand spikes to the shore alongside 
the ice-houses, through channels of water kept open for 
the purpose. They are then one at a time elevated by 
horse power to the reception doors of the houses, where 
men are ready to take them, and pass them along on 
wooden rails to their places in the house, whereby strik¬ 
ing a chisel lightly into the grooves, they instantly sepa¬ 
rate into nine blocks each, of twenty-two inches wide, 
and of such thickness or depth as the ice may have 
formed. Mr. Hittinger remarked to me that a forma¬ 
tion of ice. thirteen inches in depth is, on the whole, most 
desirable and easiest managed. These smaller blocks are 
laid up in regular courses, so that when the house is 
filled, the ice is almost as solid and regular as masonry. 
The tools used in this business are its own; peculiar 
and beautiful. They are of great variety; many of them 
are costly, but very effective The “ ice-cutter,” alone, 
is considered as of the annual value, to the ice-cutting 
business of the northern United States, of tweuty thou¬ 
sand dollars. It has spread abroad into several states, 
and has even gone to Russia. 
The ice-houses which I saw at Fresh Pond, are built 
above ground, and as near the margin of the pond, as cir¬ 
cumstances allow. Messrs. Gage, Hittinger &. Co.’s hou¬ 
ses are built of wood. They are 90 feet long, by 32 feet 
wide, and twenty foot posts. They take 45 blocks of ice 
lengthwise, and 16 blocks widthwise,—the number of 
tiers in height being governed by the thickness the ice 
in different seasons may have formed. They have dou¬ 
ble Avails, formed by framing two ranges of joists upright, 
into plates at the top, and sills at the bottom. The outer 
range of joists is boarded up on the inside, and the inner 
range on the outside, leaving a clear space between the 
two boardings, of two feet in vridth. This space is filled 
with spent tan-bank, well trodden down. Once in about 
every five feet in perpendicular height of the two ranges 
of joists, they are confined together, by irorf straps, to 
prevent the sides of the house from Avarping out of shape. 
The roofs are of rafters and shingles, in the usual 
manner of building. The bottoms of the ice-houses are 
of earth, over which wood-shavings are placed previous 
to getting in ice. When the houses are full, the ice is 
covered about ten inches deep Avith dry shavings. In the 
southern latitudes to AAdiich ice is sent, the houses are ex¬ 
pensively built, usually of stone or brick, with double 
Avails, containing either double air-spaces, or spaces filled 
with light, dry vegetable matter. Their excessive cost 
is quite a hindrance to the enlargement of the trade; and 
if this could be modified, the business Avould adAunce 
more rapidly. Mr. Tudor has alone, $100,000 im T ested 
in these buildings in Rew-Orleans. 
Mr. Hittinger informed me, that, Avhen the weather is 
good, and the business is in full blast, he can employ 250 
men, and 70 to 100 horses, in the various methods of se- 
curing ice; and that on such occasions, from 2 to 3,000 
tons of ice are housed in one day, at an expense A^arying 
all the way from 10 to 50 cents per ton, the cost depend¬ 
ing upon circumstances, favorable or otherwise. While 
I Avas revieAving his operations, 30 cars, holding in all, 
240 tons of ice, Avere loaded in three quarters of an hour, 
or at the rate of a car in a minute and a half. The ice 
Avas taken to the wharf in Charlestown, to fill a vessel 
then loading. Ffre horses, each taking a block 5| feet 
wide each way, and folloAving each other in quick suc¬ 
cession, drew the ice from the pond, up an inclined plane, 
