The Rhode Islander

Ice Houses.

It has often been matter of astonishment to us that more of our farm houses are not provided with this valuable appendage. The cost of constructing them is very trifling, as the builder can do all 'within himself,' and at seasons when there is necessarily little else of consequence to occupy his time.

When convenient, the location of the ice house should be in the cellar, where it will be doubly convenient from the ready facilities it affords for preserving milk, butter, &c., during the summer, all of which are greatly improved, and oftentimes preserved by ice, when, without it, they would be liable rapidly to deteriorate, or perhaps spoil. Nothing can be more simple than the modus operandi of constructing them. A hole, of the capacity desired, is first excavated in the bottom of the cellar, from four to six feet deep, and the bottom covered with stones of a small size, after the fashion of paving, and over which when completed, and the interstices filled with clean fine sand, is superinduced a stratum of boughs, either of spruce or fir. The sides are then lined with the same material, as is also the top, which is formed of cross work with an opening, two feet square in the side or centre, to subserve the purpose of a door. Into this depot ice should be induced in square cakes, of a uniform size, in order that they may occupy less room. The whole process, it will be seen, is very simple, and the expense of constructing and filling up, when the materials are near at hand, necessarily light. A farmer informed us recently that he had in one season saved more than three times the cost of his ice house, in the articles of milk and meat.-N. E. Farmer.