Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1886-12-10
farmers' Column.
Give fools their gold ~ naves their power
Let fortunes babbIes rise and fail;
Who sOws field or trains flower,
Or plants n tree. is more than all.
Putting up Ice.

Ice is almost indispensable to the
dairyman for bringing his milk and
cream to and keeping them at the pro-
per temperature. Aside from its use
Ia the dairy, lce,which can be freely
used during the hot months. is lux
ury in any family which we'll repays
all the cost of putting-it up, and the
wonder is that so few farmers lay in a
liberal stock of it.
No doubt many are deferred from
doing so from the impression that an
ice house is an expensive structure
and that great skill is required to pack
ice so that it will keep. Both ideas
are erroneous. Ice can be kept in the
simplest kind of a structure The es-
sential conditions are that it shall be
closely packed in mass, that there
shall be no air spsces at the bottom,
that it shall be surrounded (packed in }
by good non-conducting material in
sufficient quantity, that it shall have
tight roof to exclude rain, and that
ventilation is provided. A cheap board
building with the cracks battened
answers about as well as costly struc.
ture with double walls filled in. The
keeping of the ice does not depend so
much upon the walls of the building
as upon the kind and amount of mate
rial with which it is packed. Saw dust
or dry tan bark furnish the best pack
ing materials. But these in many 10
calltles are difficult to obtain. Next
to these dry cut straw or chaff is pro-
badly the best, and almost any farm
can furnish the straw. Cut straw is
better than whole, because it packs
closer and makes better non conduc-
tor, though whole straw is often sue
cessfully used. In the latter case the
space for filling between the pile of ice
and the walls of the building needs to
be wider than if cut straw were used.
In case cut straw is used we would
leave space of sixteen inches for fill
Ing, but with whole straw of two feet.
The stills of the building should rest
on the ground, or on a wall built for
them, allowing no air to enter under
meath. We would lay tile foot be-
low the surface inside, with its outlet
some distance away, to keep the bot
tom dry, but tile should not open in
to the building to admit air. A foun-
datlon of at least foot deep of the
packing material, saw dust, tan or
straw, should be laid over the bottom.
on which to build the pile of ice, and
the blocks should be as nearly as pos
sible Of uniform size so as to pack
closely. and it is well to go over each
layer as it Is put in and fill all cracks
with pounded ice Sc as to make the pile
as near solid as possible. When the
pile is finished, or as it progresses, the
filling between it and the sides of the
building should be made and tramped
down as solidly as possible, and COW
erlng of at least two feet in depth be
made over all. Ventilation should be
provided for by openings in the gables
or ventllating shaft going up through
the comb of the roof to permit the es-
capa OF the moist air which gathers
above the ice. The door should be for
convenience made in two sections. an
upper AID lower, boards laid across on
the inside of the frame holding the
packing material in place. The pro-
per size to build is an important mat
ter, and this depends upon the amount
of ice that will be required Ice as
put up will measure about forty cubic
feet to the ton, and ten tops would be
liberal supply for family use. This
would be equivalent to a pile feet
long, s feet wide and 81 feet high. If
We allow two feet on all sides for pack
ing space, the building to hold this
amount in the form above given would
need to be l2x12 feet with nine feet
posts. A door in the gable would be
needed for putting in the top layers
and taking out ice early in the season.
AS cheap and good way for cheap
building would be to set posts in the
ground, three on a side Except the end
where the doors are) with 2x4s for the
plate and middle and bottom girths,
and board up and down and batten,
banking up at the bottom to exclude
air. The roof should project consid-
erably on all sides 80 as to shade the
sides, and if it could be built under
the shade of trees it would be all the
better. When expense is no object,
and permanent structure is desired,
brick or stone foundation should be
put IN on which to lay the stills, which
should be bedded in mortar, and dou-
BILE walls can be made by using 2x6 or
sxl2 for studdlng and filling the space
between the outside and inside board
ing. Ice should be cut and put up
only in freezing weather. If cut and
handled when the temperature is a.
bove freezing, the blocks splinter and
crack, and its keeping qualities are
considerable injured. Farmers Re
VleaU.
1t would be better for US if we con-