The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1892-04-28
EMBARRASSING.
How the Ice is Gathered In and
Stored in Houses.
Three or More Crops May Be
Cut From the Frozen Fields.

While ice is in general use, COM
paratiyely few people know how the
crop is gathered. 1t is very inter-
esting as we'll as useful industry.
Recently artificial ice has been intro
duced, but it does not compare favor
ably with the natural ice. Snow ice
is the most desirable, it having more
| durability than the clear ice, and con-
sequently is most sought after for use
in refrigerators, etc.
A large quantity of ice for New
York consumption is gathered up the
Hudson, and from the lakes in Rock
land and Orange counties. The ice is
fit to cut when about ten inches thick,
though sometimes crops over twenty
inches in thickness are gathered.
If the season is good one sometimes
three or more crops are cut, providing
the companies engaged i'll the indus
try have sufficient storage capacity.
The ice harvest provides employment
for a large number of men who can
not work at their ordinary occupations
during the winter-c carpenters, brick
layers, masons, fishermen and others
being among those who benefit by the
industry.
The first process of gathering in
the ice is to plane it (Which is ldone
with a machine called scraper or
planer), which removes all the rough
pieces of ice and other substances,
and leaves nice, smooth, clean sur
face. The next thing is to mark out
he ice in blocks % by 80 inches,
which is done by machine. After
this the ice-plow is brought into use.
The plow resembles a saw with very
big teeth, and is drawn by horse
and guided by person who cuts into
the lines made by the marker. The
ice is plowed to within four inches of
its depth, which leaves it sufficiently
strong to bear the weight of
the workmen. Large cakes are
next sawed off by hand and
floated through canals kept open for
the purpose to the ice-house. The
workmon have long steel bars with
which they guide the blocks along. 1t
is common sight to see men standing
on large cakes of floating ice and
pushing themselves along with their
ice bars; occasionally the wind or
current will carry them out to the
middle of the lake or river, making
their rescue necessary by boat. AS
the large cakes of ice are floated up to
the storing-house workman breaks
off the blocks into the regulation size
as marked. This is done with a bar,
and is called barring off the ice. The
blocks are then guided on to a ma
chine resembling an endless chain,
which carries the ice to the
room, where it is stored away in
layers, with the ends two inches apart.
The old plan was to pack the ice close
together, with the result that it froze
into solid mass. This meant great
deal of labor to get it out again when
wanted, and also considerable waste
in broken ice. Even when stored
with the ends of the blocks two inches
apart there is more labor attached to
getting out the ice than in cutting and
storing it away.
When wanted the ice is taken from
the top and conveyed by an incline
tramway or slide, which runs down on
the outside of the building to the
ground, and is placed in wagons and
carried to the trains and boats for
transportation all over the country. 1t
takes one hundred and fifty men about
five days to cut and store away the ice
from twenty acres of water Har-
per's Weekly.
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