The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1867-01-25
lce.vauIts i'm Cellars.

Every housekeeper, and especially every per-
son who conducts dairy, would do well to
establish small ice-house in the cellar. whore
ice can be preserved for use through the warm
season. The benefit of such a vault would
be more than an Offset to the cost, which need
be but small. Unless cellar, without ice to
chill the atmosphere, is unusually deem and
cool, most dairy women find it difficult TO Sc
cure all their cream in summer before the
milk begins to sour; and after the cream is
soured and the butter brought, it is difficult to
keep the butter any length of time for family
use, or for the market, without its becoming
rancid. All this damage and loss might be
prevented by supply of ice in the cellar de-
posted the preceding winter. This would
keep the atmosphere cool, preserve the milk
sweet and the butter nice and hard, in which
case it would command reader market snd
higher price. Every housekeeper, too. has
fresh meat, fish, &C., for daily use in summer.
which cannot be preserved sweet for mapy
hours without low temperature. IF there
were small ice-house in the cellar, milk, but
ter, meat, fish, &c, might be kept in good con-
dition almost as long as in winter-and surely
this is a very economical desideratum.
II you have none such already projected
within or about your premises, now is the time
to prepare and fill one. We have excellent
ice in Maine; and in this respect il in no
other, excel nearly every other State in the
Union! To secure the advantages which we
have suggested, all you have 10 do is to select
a proper place in the cellar, which is
supposed to be of ample dimensions. and
dig hole-say five or six feet square
and nearly as deep. Let it have
brick or stone wall on the exterior Sides
If, within this, you place board or plank
wall, four inches from the exterior wall. the
space between to be filled with tanners bark
or sawdust, so much the better. Cover the
bottom a few inches with the same material.
Bark or saw-dust are good non-conductors of
heat. Now cut your ice to the proper dimen-
sions, and lay the sheets closely in the vault.
till 1t is filled within six inches of the cellar
floor. These six inches you will fill with bark
or sawdust, or, it you prefer, clean shayinas.
which may be easily removed as Won have oc-
casion TO reach and take out any cakes of ice.
Cover the vault with a trap-door, which NAV
be lifted at will. In this way you lose no eel
lar room, but can pass over the vault as well
as elsewhere; and whatever you place upon
the vault in summer win keep refreshingly
COOL No one who keeps dairy ought to be
without a domestic ice-yault, either in the
cellar or perhaps under the wood house floor.
The cost cannot be much, and such privi-
le9e will be found good economy. As the
householder wishes for a cake of ice during
the summer, to cool his beverage or to lie
upon his butter-plate at meals, all he has to do
is to repair to his icevaut, raise the trap door.
scrane away the tan-baTk or sawdust and
break off with bis chisel OF hatchet the reoui-
site piece of ice. The clerk of the weather
here in Maine generally manufactures ice co
thick and cheap, that the cost of procuring If
from some neighboring stream or nond can
only amount to the labor and time of roino
after 1t. Or, if you have no stream or pond
near by, you may make the ice at yolr own
door, Suffer barrel-half or tub to be filled
WIN pure water from the well, and let it
freeze solid. Before spring remove this to the
cellar, and add other like barrels or tubs till
the desired quantity is deposited in the vault
In this way you are sure of purer ice than
that formed on the surface of some ponds or
streams
TRAXI.