Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-10-20

BEST Ice FIELDS
| on the Kennebec, the whole extent embrace
ing about ninety acres. When at the full
business of cutting and storing, the company
employs from 300 to 400 men and 100 horses
for an average period of from six weeks to
two months. The work of cultivating an
ice field-for Mr.. Lawrence assures us that
an ice field has to be cultivated" for good
crop of ice equally as for good crop of
corn or potatoes and of cutting and storing
the ice, has become so reduced to a system
or business, and one, too, requiring such an
amount of skill and expert knowledge in its
successful prosecution as to almost take rank
as profession. This is shown by the large
number of tools and implements now indis-
pensable for carrying on the business. Fully
40 different tools, implements and machines
are used in the business, no one of which can
be dispensed with. These consist of ice aug
ers and testers, picks, cutters. scrapers, bars,
shovels, harrows, growers or markers, plows
to say nothing of the engine required in
elevating the ice blocks to the storage bins.
While the "cultiyating' of the ice field is
work requiring several weeks duration, that
of filling the houses is a comparatively short
job. Snow must be kept from the field so
that the ice will make solid and uniform in
quality. A great variation often takes place
in the quality of ice, even within short dis
tances. Near canal where the water is
kept open, ice will form solid and clear to
depth of twenty inches or two feet, while in
other parts of the field it will vary from six
to fourteen inches. When the ice is ready
to be stored the entire crop will usually be
harvested, with favorable weather, in about
two weeks. A steam engine of fifty horse
power, elevates the blocks by means of an
ton will hanlle from 40 to As blocks of ice
a minute. This makes the crews packing in
the houses
JuMP Amour QUITE LIVELY
to take care of it. They want to do this, too,
for it is too cold a place in which to keep
still much, and when filling or shipping the
men are obliged to work smart for every
thing is done with rush and hurry. After
the blocks are placed in their several bins or
rooms in the houses it is covered with saw
dust. then with layer of shingle shavings-
a coarse excelsior--and over this is placed
layer of swale or marsh hay. About 500
cords of sawdust are used each season in
hacking the ice, which costs from Zoe to
sl.oo per cord. Some of this sawdust can
be saved dried, and used over and over
again. For this purpose large shaped
boxes or bins are built all over the top of the
houses, resting upon the beams or plates just
under the roof, and when the sawdust is re-
moved at the commencement of shipping it
is placed in these receptacles where it re-
mains all summer and is ready for use in
covering the ice aga in at the commencement
of another seasons work. The wasteage of
sawdust is about 200 cords per year, which
has to be made good by the purchase of new.
About one hundred tons of swale hay are
also used as top-most covering, for which
81 90 per ton is paid. At the time of our
visit to the company's houses, the
SCHOONER +. c. ALLEN,
Cant. S. B. Meady, was loading with ice for
Baltimore. She ships $50 tons, and can be
loaded in day and half. The first ice
shipped by this company the present season
was shipped April 2Sd, and the largest cargo
il has ever loaded was 1906 tons. The
quickest cargo ever loaded in the history of
the company was put into schooner in eight
and oue-half hours, and consisted of $50
tons. In packing ice for shipment that
which is shipped early in the season. or is
destined for nearby ports has no packing or
covering. But at midsummer, or when a
cargo is to be shipped south of Cape Halter
as where the water is warmer than nearer
north. both sawdust and hay are used in
covering the ice in the hold the same as in
the house when a tier is laid up, and even
then there is quite a waste Of the ice in
transit. The company is very much favored
in regard to its shipping facilities as It has
one of the best locations for loading on the