The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1878-11-21

Where the subsoil is not sufficiently
porous to carry off the waste water from
/ the melting of the ice, the ice-house will
have to be built above ground, and the
following description of one of this kind,
/ furnished by correspondent of one of
our exchanges, will serve as a glide for
building, and the directions given for
filling and taking care of the ice, is all
that is required. 1t will be seen that
the underground plan is much the
cheaper of the two, and requires less
after attention:
81 built q wood-shed last season, 80
feet long and IA wide, and used IL feet
at the north end for ice, and notwith-
standing the fact that we had but one
freeze last winter, and only got our ice
house two-thirds full of ice less than six
inches thick, we have used not less than
80 pounds day since the first of May,
and have let our neighbors have at least
1000 pounds. We still have plenty of
ice, and think it will last through Sep
TENDER. For drainage, we threw in a
foot of stone, varying in size from
goose-egg up to those that would weigh
10 or 10 pounds each. On this we put
a foot of saw-dust and then packed the
ice as close as possible, leaving a space
of Is inches all around the outside.
The ice should be cut as true
as possible, so as to pack closely, and
every crack should be filled closely with
broken ice. 1t should be filled in cold
weather, so that the ice will freeze solid,
and you should have sawdust on hand
to cover it at once. Take great pains
to pack the sawdust well round the out
side. As soon as the open, windy
weather of March sets in, visit the ice
house every day, and with a spade in
your hand, tramp round and feel with
the spade for holes, and when you find
them, fill and tramp solid. In small
ice-house this is absolutely necessary, if
you expect to keep your ice through the
summer. | am satisfied that my ice
wasted more in March and April than it
did in July and August. A body of ice,
ten feet square and ten feet high, well
packed and covered with sawdust to the
depth of eighteen inches, will keep
through the hottest season we ever have,
if attention is given to it daily; but a
weeks neglect, even in March, may
work hole through it from top to bot
tom and leave you without ice in mid
summer. For convenience in attending
to it, and also in getting ice, it should be
built near the house. Mine is within
ten feet of the kitehen-door. The
partition between the ice. and wood
house is not nailed, but the boards are
set on edges as we fill, and removed as
fast as the ice settles, and the cakes of
ice are slid on a board across the wood
shed to the kitchen door. If the ice
house can be located where there is
shade from the afternoon sun, it is of
advantage, and on the west and south |
sides would recommend double board
ing, so as to leave a dead-air chamber;
the space between the boards need not
be more than four inches. If, as in my
case, the south part of the building is
used for some other purpose, then only
the west needs to be double boarded.
The entire cost of my building, which
includes wood-shed, IS by IA feet,was
not far from $50, and if we had filed
the ice-house to the top last winter |
could have sold enough ice to have paid
for it this summer.-KdnsdS Farmer