December 5.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
149 
drive a tunnel under tho wreatb, up through the valley, 
and so let in a strong current of air, which would carry 
along with it all the moisture as fast as it was disengaged 
from the sides of the tunnel, a hard crust would soon be 
formed on the under as well as on the upper surface of 
the snow, and the mass would stand as long as the 
present order of things remain as they are. Here, then, 
is a solution on a larger scale of how a current of air 
made to pass over a mass of ice in Suffolk, preserves it 
from waste or destruction; and how a contrary mode of 
management, or rather mismanagement, had thrown 
aside the use of icehouses altogether at the present day. 
And now to our icebergs. 
“ Catch your hare and then cook the beast,” is a trite 
proverb, but you may catch your ice and pack it too, in 
the best possible manner, and yet you may not succeed 
in keeping much after all. If there are leaves or broken 
sticks on the ponds and lakes, and we.get them in our 
ice, we can no more keep it than if we placed the lumps 
on hot gridirons. A little stick not bigger than my pen¬ 
holder will make for itself a whole chamber in the 
centre of an ice-wcll or iceberg; and as the vapour must 
accumulate, the ice melts away in an increased ratio ; 
therefore, the very first look-out should be on the waters, 
whence the ice is to be drawn. All that being settled, 
we shall rest on our oars till our little craft is fairly 
fixed in two inches thickness of clear-as-crystalice, then, 
and not till then, is the proper time to sound the horn 
and gather all our strength to the side of the water; one 
set of stout fellows are to be provided with fish-hook¬ 
like instruments, barring the barb fixed at the end of 
long poles, like those used by the “ lancers,” only to be 
as long as the men can use; another lot of men are to 
be provided with stout clubs to'smash the ice into such 
pieces as a third set can conveniently raise on common 
hay-forks, and tumble into carts backed to the very edge 
of the water. After a while, the ice round the sides is 
all disposed of, and on its way to the iceberg; and our 
little boat is also disengaged and ready to carry out a 
clubman and a hooker; the former gives a blow to the 
ice with his weapon, and the man with the long hook 
harpoons a large sheet of disengaged ice, and tho boat 
pulls the whole to the shore. Here the clubmen do their 
duty, and the forkmen soon follow, and the coast is clear 
for a second haul, and so on, till the gardener at Abe 
iceberg says—“enough,” for this season. 
In the face of all “ temperance” people, those engaged 
in this sloppy and pummelling work will not long keep 
their tempers smooth without something hot, with a 
spoon in it. In Scotland they give them raw whiskey, 
and make them as wild and frantic as the little boys who 
handed up the red hot bolts for fixing the tubes of the 
new Menai Bridge ; and instead of breaking the ice, 
they sometimes break more valuable articles, even to the 
cracking of bones and such things; but here in England, 
where bones are of more value, they take better care of 
the whole framework—bones and all, and givo the men 
good wholesome home-brewed, right hot off the fire, and 
some ginger grated into it: and a very grateful beverage 
it turns out; and most grateful are tho poor fellows for 
it,—and to see them toasting the crust of a “ brown 
tommy,” and plunging it into the midst of a ten-gallon 
can, is enough to warm both sides of a philanthropist 
through and through. 
The making of an iceberg is the simplest thing in the 
world. It must bo made sugar-loaf fashion, with the 
broad end at the bottom of course. I have built them 
with perpendicular sides up to seven feet, and then 
sloped in tho top like a corn stack, but the plan is not so 
good, or is it so easily thatched, as when made in a regular 
cone from the bottom upwards. There are several ways 
of doing this coning of the icebergs. When the site is 
on level ground, the carts must be emptied as near to the 
cone as that the ice when broken can be conveniently 
thrown on with shovels, and then two or even three | 
places round the cone may be used for breaking the ice; 
but the easiest way is, when the ground or site is on the 
face of a bank, or at the bottom of a gravel or chalk pit, 
as in that way the carts may be emptied on the top ol 
the bank, broken there, and then thrown down the j 
bank, so as to empty itself on the cone at once. This is 
the plan we have adopted here for the last twelve years. 
A natural hollow was chosen for the site of the iceberg, 
and the bank on one side made as steep as we could; 
and at six feet from the bottom of the bank you meet 
the outside of the cone when it is finished. Some such 
space is necessary between the bank and the ice, to get 
rid of rain or snow-water running down the bank before 
it gets to the ice. At the bottom of the bank, and half 
way up, posts are let into the ground in pairs, four feet 
apart, and braced together with a strong piece of timber 
set across, as builders do their scatfolding; then our 
garden planks for wheeling on are made into a long 
trough, inclining from the top of the bank, and resting 
on those cross pieces; the bottom of the trough being 
carried out to near the centre of the cone, and far above 
it; the ice is broken on a platform of boards at the top 
of the bank, and thrown into the inclined trough, ami 
down it rattles, falling just over the cone. Nothing can 
be more simple. A set of men are now put on the cone 
to distribute the broken ice as it falls from the spout, and 
one of whom is the master builder: he sees the cone 
brought up as regularly as if he were a professor of conic 
sections in the university; and when the ice reaches the 
height of the bottom of the spout, the planks are re¬ 
arranged so as to allow room for throwing off the ice as 
fast as it comes down; and, finally, when the cone is 
finished into a sharp point, the whole is left till the first 
frost after mild or thawing weather; and the reason is 
this—as soon as it turns to rain or thaw, the outside of 
the iceberg begins to melt a little, and sometimes it re¬ 
mains so for three weeks, but on the first hard frosty 
night the whole is frozen over again, and the outside ot 
the cone is then as if it were one solid face of rugged ice, 
and now is the time to thatch it with good long straw, 
and about the same thickness as you would a wheat or 
barley stack, and no more, provided you have cheaper 
materials to give it a good thick covering afterwards. 
Here, we use large quantities of leaves, and nothing else, 
over the straw; we throw it on at intervals, so that the 
leaves do not heat by putting too many on at once. The 
depth of covering over the straw is sometimes twice as 
much as in other seasons, according to the quantity of 
leaves on hand, but I could never make out that two feet 
in thickness preserved the ice better than one foot. One 
thing 1 did not expect to find out is, that wo never had 
the ice uncovered by high winds blowing off the leaves, j 
and we never put anything on or against them to keep 
them down. 
Perfect exemption from wet or damp is necessary for 
the bottom of an iceberg; and a few pieces of rough 
wood, placed on such a place, and covered with brush¬ 
wood about afoot, and that again covered with six inches 
of straw is the way wo do here. Tho brushwood and 
straw are soon compressed into a few inches in thick¬ 
ness by the weight of the ico ; and as the ice melts, the 
water passes through, without hindrance, into cross open 
drains at bottom, and soon into a bed of white sand. 
D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Ventilation —Low Temperature at Night, &c.— 
When the exhausting effects of a high temperature at 
night come to be fully seen, two economical advantages 
will arise; the first is, that provided air is given early 
