The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-12-03
Temporary Ice Ponds.

Ice is no longer luxury for the farmer.
1t is necessity. In many different ways
ii enables him to make the most of his
farm products. By using it to cool his
milk promptly he considerably improves
the quality and quantity of his dairy pro-
duce, and in packing his butter for market
tits indispensable. Many farms are far from
a natural or ready-made artificial source of
ice-suppiy, and to the jewellers on these it
is important to know where the ice is to
come from. Probably there are farms, es-
pecially in the West. whose there is no
chance for making temporary pond, but
by far the greater part of our farms include
rolling land, which must somewhere af-
ford depression capable of being made
into a reservoir during the winter. The
best and surest way, Of course, is to dam
stream, no matter how small, at a place
where the conformation of the land Is
such that short dam will flood a broad sur
face. 1t does not take very large super
fetal area of water TO furnish ice enough
for a private establishment (half an acre
frozen six inches thick will yield 300 tons
of ice); and no doubt many farmers will
be able TO find hollOws in their land where
a comparatively small dam will flood a
sufficient area. 1t is not by any means es-
sential that the dam shall cross the bed of
regular water course. The long storms
of early winter almost always set little
streams running down depressiOns, which
receive the washings of few acres. Ii a
water-tight dam be made across one of
these, it is probable that pond large
enough for an ice-crop will be ready by
the time the heavy frosts set in. If the
pond is to be merely temporary affair, it
is desirable that the dam shall be
to a certain extent portable, and
there is nothing so available and servicea-
BILE as common fence posts and hemlock
planks. Dig post-holes say four feet deep
and six or eight feet apart along the line
of the proposed dam. fthe posts are to
stand more than four feet above ground
they should be bedded in some kind of
concrete to secure solidity. The posts
should be braced on the downstream side
as firmly as practicable. To these posts
the hemlOck planks are to be bolted, with
carriage bolts, with the nuts on the down.
stream side. The planks must be OF equal
length DC feet long if the posts are 8 feet
apart, and of like width, tongued and
grooved. The lower edges are 10 be at
least three or four inches below the sur
face of the ground with the earth well
rammed around them. In fastening the
planks to the posts, joints should be
broken, the ends and middles OF
the planks bearing the same rela-
zion to one another as bricks or dressed
stone in masonry. Any apparent
cracks or leaks of any kind should be calk-
ed with rags or filled with clay or water
cement, and however much care may be
taken it is reasonably certain that the dam,
if it is of any considerable size, will leak
somewhere. For this reason it is desirable,
wherever possible, to build it across ma
tural water course. as in this case it is pos
sible to prove its tightness, plank by plank
as the water rises. Where, however, the
dam is small, its tightness may be reason
ably assured by a liberal use of clay or ce-
ment wherever there is chance of leak
AGE. A dam of this kind may be taken
down in the spring, leaving the posts in
position for further use. Christian Union.