148 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
icehouses, and showed a far better and economical way 
of keeping ice in his “ Cottage Economy.” Economy, 
according to Cohbet, means good management; and the 
way they manage their ice in Long Island, in America, 
suggested to this writer the way we all now adopt in 
large places to secure large quantities of ice from one 
year’s end to another. The only difference between our 
present system and that recommended in the “ Cottage 
Economy,” is an improvement on his economical ice¬ 
house; and what is not a little singular, Mr. Fortune, 
in his “ Wanderings” in China, found Cobbet’s plan of 
keeping ice carried out almost to the letter amongst the 
Chinese, who, no doubt, adopted the plan many genera¬ 
tions before the rest of the world ever heard of such a 
place as America or Long Island. 
I had a long letter the other day from a gentlemen at 
Norwich in anticipation of this my promised article on 
ice and icehouses, in which he suggested all the usual 
precautions we took in filling the old icehouses, and 
stopping the passages with straw to keep them free from 
air currents, &c. Even these precautions were entirely 
on a wrong principle, as I have shown two years since. 
Currents of air to carry off the vapours arising from 
the slow melting of the ice is the prime consideration in 
ice-keeping; and confining the passages by any means 
to prevent the escape of these vapours is a fertile source 
of waste and extravagance. Those who have read the way 
in which this was proved and explained, may be curious to 
know whether we have since made any alteration or im¬ 
provement in the plan. To which I may reply, noiie what¬ 
ever— there has been a strong current of air passing 
over the icehouse here day and night, summer and winter, 
ever since; but some have misunderstood the plan so 
far, as to suppose that the air-currents are allowed to 
reach the ice itself, which is not the case. That, in¬ 
deed, would be worse than the old mode of stilling, by 
which so much ice was formerly wasted. There is a close 
covering of dry straw over the bed of ice, three or four 
inches thick, and the air enters above the straw from 
two opposite sides, and passes off at the very crown of 
the arch which covers the ice-well, and through wliieh 
the pounded ice is thrown in when the house is filled, 
which is a great improvement on some icehouses, 
where the ice has to be thrown in through a side 
passage. This opening at top is a circular hole two feet 
in diameter, and when the house is filled, or, rather, 
nearly filled,—for we leave an open space at the top for 
the air to pass freely through—a strong wooden lid fits 
into the opening, and is covered over with coal-aslies a 
little higher than the surrounding ground, in order the 
better to throw off rain and snow-water. The way air 
is let out, is by fixing a tube of four-inch bore into this 
lid, the top of the tube standing two or three inches 
above the covering outside. Like all the old icehouses, 
the part to hold the ice is made circular up to a given 
height, and then doomed-over with an arch. At the 
springing of this arch a hole was cut through the out¬ 
side bank, and through the bottom of the arch into the 
ice-well; in this was fixed earthenware pipes a foot in 
diameter, with a close iron-grating placed against the 
opening outside, to guard against the visits of rats, 
mice, or any other creature that might take a fancy to 
look in and taste some of the good things preserved 
above the ice; as, in truth, we never draw a bucket of 
ice from this house at all, it is used only as a second 
larder, and is generally supplied during the summer 
season with the best of such good things as are to be 
met with in the larders of the wealthy in the land, and 
for which things rats, and other animals belonging to 
the race of mammals, have a strong predilection in 
these close times. The passage to the ice-well has two 
doors, and a third door leads from the end of the pas¬ 
sage into the middle of the door over the ice. This 
passage with us is quite free, and small openings arc 
[December 5. I 
I 
made in each door to let in the air, so that a free air j 
passage is allowed from opposite sides of the well, and a 
quick current is caused by the top opening through the , 
lid; any damp or vapour, therefore, which may arise j 
from the melting of the ice below, rises through the 
covering of straw, and is carried out immediately by the 
rapid current. This goes on, as I have said, from year’s ; 
end to year’s end; and nothing in the way of keeping in '< 
sunk wells, that I know of, answers better. Before we 
adopted this plan, the house was so close that the ice j 
melted away too fast, leaving the house almost empty \ 
before the game season came on; but now it is other- j 
wise, we have not seen the bottom of the well since we 
opened these air passages. Therefore, if any of our i 
country readers are in a fix'with old-fashioned icehouses, 
I can confidently recommend this way of remodelling 
them; but, unless I am pressed very hard indeed, I 
shall never recommend to any one to build an icehouse 
from the foundation, for of all contrivances they are the 
most unsatisfactory things that one can take in hand, 
besides being very expensive to get up. 
Now, although it is the jnactice in all large establish¬ 
ments in the country to have the icehouse under the 
care of the gardener, in our Cottage Gardener estab¬ 
lishment I am not head gardener, only pottering among 
flowers and flower-beds; therefore, I take it very hard— 
besides being out of my proper place—to have been 
pressed to chill my fingers with this slippery article; 
but I dare say it only serves me right for the quantity of 
shoe-leather I have worn out, sliding on winter ice and 
summer snow, when I was a philosopher. 
This is the way to do the thing on scientific principles: 
when you see a wreath of snow in the bottom of a 
sloping valley (in the Highlands), you advance down the 
side until you are within twenty yards of the snow ; you 
then quicken your step a few paces, then a run, till you 
get the hindmost foot on the snow? then away you go in 
the direction of the slope; and if you do not get a tumble 
down, you may reach ever so far before the end of the 
slide. All this time the body must be kept on tbo 
centre of gravity, otherwise a sore elbow, or a bump on 
the back of the head is inevitable. Even in our play 
we might often learn some useful lessons, and the first 
thing a stranger to this kind of exercise would learn, is 
that the sun in our climate by his fiercest rays has no 
power to melt, or even to moisten the surface of a snow 
wreath, except just at the edges where it touches the 
bank on either side; the greatest accumulations of snow 
being always found in the bottoms of deep hollows, in 
the northern side of high mountains. But it is far other¬ 
wise under the snow, where the sun cannot penetrate, 
and where the air finds no passage to carry off the damp 
close atmosphere, which makes a fearful havock with the 
under side of the snow, just as confined air has been 
doing in our icehouses time out of mind. The prin¬ 
ciple is exactly the same in both cases; and I recollect, as 
if it were but yesterday, the days when I used to mourn 
over, or rather under, a favourite wreath for playful 
exercise, when about the end of August it had so worn 
from below, that it was not safe to trust oneself on the 
hard surface without risking immediate destruction. 
But to bring this light reading to bear on the question 
in hand : we have seen that not only the air in contact 
with frozen snow, but the fiercest rays of the sun in July, 
has not the slightest influence in melting it, while in 
the dark caverns, forty feet, it may be, below the surface, 
the melting is so quick and the showers of melted snow¬ 
water so powerful, that you might as soon venture to 
find your way into the hollows in the rock behind the 
spray at the Falls of Niagara, as make your way under a 
vaulted arch of snow in the month of July. I have seen 
it so hundreds of times, in the highest mountain ranges 
of the Highlands; and now I can see as clearly as can 
bo, that if a Brunei or a Stephenson were on the spot to 
