VOL. LV.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., OCT. 13, 1900.
NO. 41
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How Should  an  Ice  House   Be   Built?     How
Harvest and Store Ice so It Will Keep?
lst Premium.—In the year 1864, I
built my first ice house, after consulting
nn old ice man. My studding was of oak
pieces, 2x12 inches, 8 feet long, set on a
sill of the same size laid on the ground
after it had been leveled. My building
was 12 feet square from out to out. I
lined or boarded this with rough boards,
both outside and inside, put on horizontally. This gave me a wall 12 inches
thick, well packed with sawdust, and
left an ice chamber 10x10 feet, 8 feet
high, or 800 cubic feet. I then put on
plates and rafters, with a comb roof covered with plank. The gables were covered with shingle inch boards, with a
door in one gable, and the boards sawed
out between tw6 studding near to the
ground for a door to put in and take out
ice. These boards were placed back as
the house was filled and held by cleats.
I marked off my ice on the creek two feet
square, and sawed it with an old-
cross-cut saw. I hauled and filled
the house to the square. The ice cakes
being two feet square, five cakes each
way filled the house full to the wall, but
before putting your ice in- put in six or
eight inches of sawdust on the ground.
In putting the ice in pound up some ice
and fill all crevices, so that the house is
a solid mass to the wall. When filled
cover with sawdust, and when the weather gets warm the ice will melt some next
the wall, leaving a space whieh you
should keep filled with sawdust. You
will have to chop your ice out. You
do not want your house too tight above,
but there must be no currents up through
the ice. Now, I built the house on the
cheaps out of second or third class lumber. We had all the ice we could use
and my wife usually had from $20 to $25
in her pocket from sales made when I
was in tho field. My house stood in the
back ground. If you have to build where
your ice house will be conspicuous and
vou want it to look well, line it with drop
siding and paint. Take out enough ice
in the morning to last you through the
day, two days is better. I also made an
ice chest, as follows: Take a good sized
box put in- six inches of sawdust, set
in it a smaller box, leaving six inches between to be filled with sawdust. Have
a lid to each box, and have cleats on the
side, and loose cleats, so that they car.' be
removed to put in the ice, and you will
have room for such articles as need ice,
milk, butter, meat, etc. Set it in the
hall or shed for it will drip some.
Marion Co. I. N. C.
2d Premium.—Why should any farmer,
rich or poor, deny himself and family this
greatest of the summer luxuries, when
with a small outlay of time and energy,
he can have an abundant supply? A
farmer of limited means built for himself
an ice house that answered the purpose
of a more expensive structure. It is
simply a bin of rough boards, 15 feet
square and roofed over, leaving a large
opening at front and sides. He says his
ice kept perfectly all the season. He put
sawdust a foot or more thick on the
ground, then stacked the ice snugly in the
center, 20 inches from the walls, then
filled in with sawdust and up over the
top an equal thickness, packing the saw
dust firmly. When he takes the cakes
out, they seem to come out as square
and perfect as when they were put in.
A more convenient, and, I may add, more
expensive ice house is made on the north
side of what we call a "sawdust cellar."
it is 12x14 feet on the outside. The outside walls are made of inch plank, nailed
up and down with strips over the cracks.
It is also planked up on the inside, leaving a space of 18 inches, which is filled
with sawdust. Th sawdust is tramped
in and left there from year to year. Eight
inches of soil at the bottom was removed.
This space is filled with coarse gravel for
drainage, and over the gravel is put six
inches of sawdust. When the ice is
thick it is set within in square blocks. In
loading, the blocks are set on edge, fitting
in the wagon bed tight as it is less liable
to break. Also set them on edge in the
bouse- and in tiers one above the other,
leaving six inches of space on all sides
for sawdust. This leaves the ice iu
a square solid mass in the center. Pill
tight all around the outside and on top
with sawdust well pounded in.
Rush Co. M. M. D.
REMARKS.
The important point in the construction
of an ice house is to maintain a non-conductor of heat between the ice and the
outside atmosphere. The sawdust-filled
spaces described by our correspondents
are admirably adopted to this end, and
probably nothing better could be devised
except at greatly increased cost. One
point that has not been touched upon is
the advantage of a double roof, or a second roof placed a few inches above the
roof proper, with a free circulation of air
between them and an outlet at the extreme gable. This will carry off the
heat of the direct sun rays, and thus aid
materially in protecting the ice.
Premiums of $1, 75 cents and 50 cents
are given for the first, second and third
best articles for the Experience Department each week. Manuscript should be
sent direct to the Indiana Farmer Company and should reach us one week before the date of publication.
Topics for discussion in future numbers
of the Farmer are as follows:
No. 241, Oct. 20th—How do you handle
chickens during fall and winter?
No. 242, Oct. 27th—What changes
\rould you advise in the fish and game
lows of Indiana?
No. 243, Nov. 3.—How keep the boy on
the farm?
No. 244. Nov. 10.—Give your method
of butchering and putting up pork, and
show how you make the most of everything.
No. 245, Nov. 17.—What is the best
way to rent a farm so as to be satisfactory to both tenant and owner, and at the
same time keep up the full fertility of
the soil?
No. 246, Nov. 24.—How will you spend
Thanksgiving day? Tell all about the
iamily reunions and the good cheer on
tbe national holiday.
THE TEXAS STORM.
Mr. J. T. Huntington, of this city, received the following descriptive letter
from his brother, of the great storm that
destroyed Galveston, who has been a
resident of Texas for about 30 years. It
is a miracle that any of his family escaped-
Perry's Landing, Tex., Sept. 3.
"All of your letters received. We hal
opected the State people would buy
whatever cane there was in the neighborhood for seed, but after the storm, they,
like myself were demoralized, and can't
plant any more than they have of thei.-
own. I thin-k they have enough to plant
12,000 to 15,000 acres, and as my sugar
house is destroyed I will have to plant
al! of my cane, which I Ihink will give;
me an acreage of 300 acres, which if w>
liave a fair season ought to give me a
crop of $15,000 to $20,000. The lay alter the storm, the cane looked like a mass
of threads, but now it has put out new-
leaves and is growing and looks beautiful, of course it was blown down, but is
now turned up and is doing its best. The
.yes are putting out some, but I don't
think it will hurt it much for seed. There
are hardly any trees standing, but where
there are any they are putting out new
leaves and the pear trees are as white
ns a snow bank with blooms. I only had
two houses partiolly standing. I am putting the houses up as fast as I can, but
it is necessarily slow as help is very
: earce, and I am haying and plowing for
cane as best I can. The negros have all
put up little shacks or camps, and seem
to be satisfied, but a great many negroes
;ire leaving the country. All my houses
in Fort Bend, but three, were blown
down. Last year they were washed away
ard I replaced them, and this year blown.
I think I have lost about 300 head of cat
tie, though I can't be certain about tho
exact loss until I count them this fall,
when we round up. I have advanced the
hands on all my places this year, and the
cotton crop was a failure. The Mexican
weavil and boll worms destroyed it, and
instead of making 500 pounds of lint cotton per acre, we will not make 500 to 50
i.eres. If the cotton- crop had been good
this year, we would not have felt the
storm, as cotton is worth about 10 cents
per pound. So tbat what I havo paid out
for making crop about $4 500 is gone, except what corn and cane I have.
It would take me a week to get the
binder out, I had it stored in the northwest corner of the gin, room up stairs,
ind the wall and roof timbers fell in and
smashed it down to the ground floor and
the big brick chimney blew down on top
of that, so that it is covered up about 15
feet deep with timber and brick. I think
I wrote you that McDuffy, a white man,
and two negro children were killed at
Ibis place. After we concluded there was
a storm on hands, just after dark Saturday evening, we thought Nannie's room
the safest, the southeast room, as the
wind was blowing from the northwest,
thus giving ns the advantage of all th;
partition walls, but when the wind got
down to business, we tried to -jet out of
the house toward where the wind was
C( ming from, but could not crawl against
it, and knew if we went with it the roofs
ind flying timbers would be sure lo kill
ls. So the roof soon went and then I
thought the heavy joists and flooring
above and the ceiling below coidd not be
blown off, but the next puff took all that
i nd landed it about 400 yards away, and
we were bareheaded, without a thit.-g
i ver us, and the south wall down level
with the ground floor, and we all held together and walked out on the east sidp
cf the fallen building and laid down in
the water. I got a lick on the head with
a brick which knocked me down, but they
got me up and I went out with the crowd,
and Dan Tata, a white nu'n working for
me, was badly cut over the eye, and is
l ot well yet, and they say just as w,;
went out the other walls fell where we
had been standing, at any rate in th
morning the brick was 6 feet deep just
where we had been standing while the
1 ouse went down. Everyone who saw
where we were when the house was, said
the Lord must have been with us, Kate
got a little frightened whm the gable end
begun falling on the upper floor, but we
f-oon quieted her and everybody behaved
like little soldiers. There must have bee'i
18 inches or 2 feet of water fall that
Light, it pelted us so that everybody was
sore for a week. We laid in the wate.-
until I thought they would chill to death
or drowned. We held together and crawled
to the frame kitchen and pantry which
we expected would be blown on us every
minute and by that time a lot of negroes
bad collected and I made them hold onto
the rafter but we could not get there until nearly mcrning when the wind was
not so strong: when the wind was stronger we just had to iie down and hold on
lo each other, for if we had turned a
child loose it would have been blown
away and drowned for every where ther;
was a sea of water. The water down the
lane from the sugar house to the old
1 urnt house was two or three feet deep
next morning
Our clock stopped at 15 minutes past
10 o'clock and I suppose thnt was when
everything went down. Velasco is blown
Pat and there are just a few houses left.
The Velasco hotel went abont 5 o'clock
in the evening, in fact, most of the town
went before night. The walls of the bank
! uilding are still standing, but it is badly
wrecked. I think I wrote you that every
building oa the Sowwoon State farm
went down except tlie captain's house
and that badly wrecked. They had about
'_'00 prisoners in the building when- it
went down, killing 19 and wounding
about GO, but they only lost five that ran
a i\ay. Brazonia was not hurt much, all
the churches blown down was about all;
Columbia badly damaged; Angleton, our
county seat, nearly all blown down. Richmond nearly all blown down. The storm
even blew my tile kiln down, also shed.
I thought of all places that would be th1
safest if we could get there but we woul I
all have been killed in it. Some of the
legroes crawled under the boilers, tbat
was the most sensible."
CSetie*al flews.
Antwerp has tbe hightst chimney in tht; world.
It belongs to the silver works company and la
410 feet high. The interior diameter is 25 fejt
ut the base and 11 feet at the top.
Some 2,000,000 pounds of camphor are consumeJ
Ir.   the  United  States yearly.
Cairo ia the greatest town of Africa; Its inhabitants number* £.00,000, 25.C00 being Europeans.
Moet spiders are possessed of poison-fangs, but
very few are dangerous to huim n beings.
In 189G, when the harvest w&s abundant, 5,500
tushels of i:pphs were distribotcd In Boston to
more than 5,000 applicants.
In the rubber forests in Para one latxrer disposes of 100 trees in seven months, securing from
400 to 800 kilogvanimmcs of rubber, of which hj
gets   half  from   his  employer.
Of the 1,070 miles of paved streets in Philadelphia, only 70 remain pi ved with cobble an.l
nibble.
Manufacturers of birch beer hi^ve been detected
fitting down birch trees ln Van Cortlandt Park,
Now York, to get the bark to flcvor the llquoi*
with.
The Departmeiit of Agriculture and Commerce
of Japan, predict a splendid rice crop thia year.
rIhe  average crop b;ing  191,834,200 bushels.
A Missouri farmer hss gone into the buslnesi
of raising (jii&il. He says thu birds are more
easily handled than chickens, and far move pro-
titable.
While repairing a temple the Chinese cover up
the eyes of the idols, in order that the dieties
may not be offended at the sight of the disorder.
Central New Yoik la particularly a dairy
country.
A most peculiar thing about 'he marriage ceremony of Russian peasants Is t*" fact that when
the couple cuter the church both bridegroom and
I vide make a dash for the platform on which is
the pulpit. It is believed that the one whose foot
touch* a the platform first will live the longer,
and that the children will take after that one li
size,   health  and  beauty.
Mexico promises to be a larg» factor In the orange markets within a year or two, as the d3-
vclopment of grovts ihero nas recently been
taken up very largely. It is said by an author-
in the trade that by 1903 a large part of our
oranges will come from Mexico
It is generally stipulated in France when wine
is sold that ihe purchaser shall re*arn ths barrel
:it bis own expense, and the cry, "send back my
barrel," is going out from every wine dealer's
house. It la calculated that or.e barrel will
strve seven years If properly cared for.