Norwich bulletin., 1909-01-09
A FARMERS talk TO FARMERS.
The Ice House the FarmThe Advantages of It--How
Easily 1t Can Be Built-An inexpensive and Very
Useful AdditionThe Cost of Small One and How
to Build and to Pack the Ice So that 1t will Keep.

/ involved. They needn't be. BY the
use of waste materials which are
usually plentiful on farms, almost any
one can build perfectly satisfactory
ice house in his spare hours. If my
own experience is my criterion, it can
be done at very little money-cost, and
ian be maintained with very little
-rouble.
The year | built my shop had a lot
of leftover bits of timber, after the
carpenters were through. l was stack
ing up the pieces when suddenly the
thought occurred to me that ! might
make an ice-house out Of them. We
never had one, though we had long
wanted it. 1 had a gravel ridge near
the barn, perhaps twenty feet wide
and six or eight feet above the hoI-
lows on either side. 1 dug out a sau-
GER shaped excavation on the crown of
this, ten feet square, six inches deep
at the outside and eighteen inches deep
at the center. From the lowest point
| dug a ditch through the gravel till
it emerged on the side of the ridge,
ten feet outside the proposed building.
This / filed with round cobble stones,
hoping it would serve to drain the wa
ter from the melting ice. It has done
so for some ten years.
Then ! rough-hewed four sticks six
inches square for the sills, and simply
halved them together at the corners.
Pieces of ? by plank were set up for
the corner posts and studding. Tins
! made me a structure ten feet square
and eight feet high. If my pieces Of
six inch plank weren't eight feet long
l spliced them by the crude method of
butting two together and fishing" the
,rrfk,
sides. Same with the rafters. / board
ed the outside with the waste stuff left
around the new shop building. Then
l nailed the very best boards I. had
left as a second wall on the inside of
the six-inch studding, making an in
closed six inch air space. This 1 stuff
ed with sawdust, ramming it down as
hard as ] could. The roof was made
OF pine slabs, laid at a quarter pitch.
I made the roof project well over both
ends, and left the gables open for ven
tilation.
Thus got box nine feet square on
the inside and eight feet high to the
plates, with double wall, sawdust-
stuffed. 7 lid all the work with my
own hands In about three days. I'm
no carpenter. you seei l didn't use a
single whole board or plank-just the
pieces the carpenters left from their
work, and some slabs from the waste
heap Of a neighboring sawmill. l had
to buy a pair Of hinges for the door.
They cost me 10 cents. And that was
all the money 1 spent on the ice-house. |
Three days work and IS cents in mon
ey; nothing very dreadful about that, |
Ell?
Every winter ! pay a teamster
who draws ice as a winter |
SO to fill my house. Some |
times, when the sleighing is good, he |
is able to do it with two big loads; |
sometimes he draws three, if he has |
to come on wheels. Every winter, also, |
pay rs cents for load Of fresh |
sawdust-draw Il myself Of course |
Every summer we have all the ice we 1
can use for domestic purposes 1--WE run |
no dairy and every summer I sell |
enough to ice-less neighbors at 25 |
cents a cake to amount to from IS 4
to Sc. That Is, my little cubbyhole OF
an ice house which cost three days'
work and fifteen cents IN money, has
given us every summer for more than
ten years all the ice we wanted at a
net annual cost Of IS or less.
I've Just been looking IL over. Ice
rom eight to ten inches thick is re-
ported from the nearby ponds. and nv
supply is likely to come along very
soon, now. Some Of the inside boards
ire pretty rotten. They'll do" once
more though. Next fall probably
herell have to be some patching.
Also, the slab-roof is about used UT.
shall probably have to spend a dol
ar, next year, on REPAIRS" Well. I
.uess It will be worth while. I shan't
lick, should you?
a@
Just one suggestion about packing
no ice: I've tried pounded ice and
awdust between the cakes to fill the
revices. And snow beats the others
II hollow. You must fill these cracks. |
you expect ice to keep in as small :
house as mine. Otherwise drafts ! {
Ill rise, melting away the ice very
asst. Punch the snow down between I
he blocks, and then level off the TOP
each layer with more, before the j
ext layer is begun. When I pack ice I
nat way. I always have it keep per-
ectly. Last September. when we stop {
ed using, there were still twenty
axes in the house, though two fam
les had been supplied from It with c
u they wanted for refrigerators and
'e-cream making for the whole sum- I
Ter. THE FARMER.
TUnET CnUATTTrC