[Illustration: AN ICE HARVESTING SCENE.]
THE ICE CROP
How to Harvest, Store, Ship and Use Ice
A COMPLETE PRACTICAL TREATISE
FOR
FARMERS, DAIRYMEN, ICE DEALERS, PRODUCE SHIPPERS, MEAT
PACKERS, COLD STORERS, AND ALL INTERESTED IN ICE
HOUSES, COLD STORAGE AND THE HANDLING
OR USE OF ICE IN ANY WAY
INCLUDING
Many Recipes for Iced Dishes and Beverages
BY THERON L. HILES
NEW YORK
ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
1893
COPYRIGHT, 1892,
BY ORANGE JUDD COMPANY
PREFACE.
An attempt is made, in this volume, to record some of the more
prominent features regarding Ice as it affects the health, convenience
and industry of the people.
The development of the ice industry during the last forty years has
been phenomenal; there are, however, but few records by which its
progress can be accurately gauged.
No pretentions, other than those of a practical character, are made
in behalf of this book. But it is hoped that the information here
collected will meet with the favor and approval of those who are
interested in this commodity.
THERON L. HILES.
CHICAGO, ILL., WINTER, 1892.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Page.
Frontispiece[A] 2
Title Page 3
Preface 5
Chapter I, An Historical Sketch 7–11
Chapter II, Legal and Sanitary Methods 11–14
Chapter III, Cutting and Storing Ice 14–42
Chapter IV, Construction of Commercial Ice Houses 42–55
Chapter V, The Care, Handling and Marketing of Ice 56–62
Chapter VI, The Use of Ice in Refrigeration--Refrigerator
Ice House for Use in Farming, Cutting Ice in Small
Quantities for Farm and Family Use, Co-operation with
the Ice Crop 62–83
Chapter VII, Artificial Ice and Cold Air Machines 84–91
Chapter VIII, Ice in Transportation 91–96
Chapter IX, Retarding Houses Without Ice--Miscellaneous
Hints 96–101
Chapter X, Recipes for Iced Food and Beverages 101–114
List of Illustrations 115–116
Index 117–122
[A] The Frontispiece is from the ice harvest of the Knickerbocker Ice
Co. of Chicago.
THE ICE CROP.
CHAPTER I.
AN HISTORICAL SKETCH.
The Origin of the Ice Business in the United States--Its Wonderful
Development Commercially and in the Manifold Uses of Ice--A Pen
Picture of a Modern Ice Harvest.
Prior to 1805, there was no regularly conducted traffic in ice, in
this country. In the winter of 1805–6, a supply was secured at Boston,
Mass., and the following summer a cargo was despatched to the West
Indies, where yellow fever was then raging.
DOMESTIC AND EXPORT TRADE were both of very slow growth, and, in 1825,
the ice consumed in the United States and exported to foreign ports
was probably less than fifty thousand tons. During the thirty years
following, the consumption of ice increased more rapidly, and the
enterprise of the shippers carried the fame of Boston ice all around
the world. Cargoes were consigned to London, to the East Indies, and
the West Indies, Rio de Janeiro, Calcutta, China, Japan, and Australia.
THE EXPORT TRADE reached its height about this time. Frederick Tudor,
of Boston, Mass., who shipped the first cargo to the West Indies in
1806, and whose enterprise had carried his ships to all the ports
mentioned, was titled the “Ice King.” Not many years after this,
ice and refrigerator machines began to supply the demand for ice in
tropical climes, and the importations of the natural product soon
ceased. Two million tons is a liberal estimate of the amount of ice
stored at this date, 1855, in the United States, with six or seven
million dollars of invested capital.
MANY NEW USES for ice have exerted a marked influence on the demand
during the succeeding years. During the war of the Rebellion, the
Government was a large purchaser, on account of the hospital service.
The brewers, who in earlier days, had suspended operations during the
heat of the summer, now pursued their avocation continuously, with the
aid of ice. Meat packers found in ice an agent for immensely augmenting
their product, while the fisheries consumed many thousand tons.
The demand for ice creams and cooled drinks, together with the
growing taste for luxuries, in our cities and towns, has stimulated
the retailing of ice until, at this time, there is hardly a town
or village, where ice privileges exist, that does not support a
representative of the ice trade, and there are few large towns in the
South which are not furnished with one or more artificial ice factories.
THE USE OF ICE.--It is safe to say that, at this time, the users of
ice, directly or indirectly, now include nearly the entire population
of the United States.
DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS.--The progress made in the methods and
conveniences for securing the natural ice crop, and in the construction
of storage houses, has kept pace with the growth of the demand.
Originally, axes and saws comprised the dealers’ outfit. Now, a modern
plant is replete with tools and appliances, whose manufacture is a
distinct calling, and may comprise vessels, cars, wagons, immense
storage houses, where upward of one hundred thousand tons of ice are
gathered under one roof, also city supply depots and wharfs, all of
which are equipped with special regard to handling this product.
EXTENT OF THE ICE INDUSTRY.--The annual consumption of natural and
manufactured ice is very great. By adding to this the equivalent, in
tons of ice, of the work performed by refrigerator machines, in the
various industries in which they are used, the grand total is estimated
to exceed twenty million tons of ice used each year.
The capital invested in carrying on this business is not less than
twenty-eight million dollars. Employment, constant and temporary,
is afforded by the ice trade to about ninety thousand persons and
twenty-five thousand horses.
It is probable that more than half of the world’s annual ice supply
is procured and consumed in this country, which is the home of this
industry.
THE PRESERVING OR ANTISEPTIC POWERS OF ICE have long been made use of
to keep food from decay. The best illustration of its powers in this
direction is found in the accounts which travelers in Northern Europe
and Asia have given us of the discoveries of huge mammoths frozen
within large blocks of ice. This species of animal has been extinct
for ages, and so perfectly have they been preserved that some of the
native tribes occasionally make use of these supplies of flesh for
food. Fish, meat and eggs are now frozen and kept during many months,
and the transportation of fresh beef and mutton for thousands of miles
over land and sea is an established custom. Fresh fish are frozen in
the center of cakes of ice, and, shipped in this way, present a very
handsome appearance.
This property of ice for domestic and commercial purposes has been of
an incalculable benefit to the human family. Many eminent physicians
have laid the seal of their approval upon the use of ice as a remedial
agent, and also for the alleviation of suffering among the sick. So
highly did they esteem it that, prior to the general introduction of
the trade in ice, many doctors and managers of hospitals had private
stores of ice for use among their patients. The directors of the
Pennsylvania hospital at Philadelphia may be credited with being the
pioneer ice dealers of that city, as in the early years of the century
they disposed of their surplus stores of ice by sale in that community.
Many localities which are now important centers in the ice trade were
at one time dependent upon the medical fraternity for ice for hygienic
purposes.
PEN PICTURE OF A MODERN ICE HARVEST. (See Frontispiece.)--Viewed
from an eminence on the shore, a pretty and engaging scene is often
presented at an ice house in the country, during the harvest. The clear
sunlight flooding the quiet landscape discloses here and there a snug
farmhouse sheltered among the hills, and surrounded with trees and
shrubs, rivaling, in their soft downy draperies of spotless white and
brilliant pearls, their vernal beauty when joyous spring has clothed
their boughs with fragrant blossoms and emerald leaves. The broad
stream or lake, ice-locked and still, stretches away to the distance,
a level and unbroken plain; its farther shore dwindling away until
lost to view, presents a delicately traced outline of forest and field
against the horizon. The near by shore stands out clear cut and bold
of outline, but quiet and deserted. Nothing in the aspect of nature
denotes activity or invites the attack of man by a display of treasure.
Stepping to the brink of the hill near the shore, a new scene breaks
upon the view. At the foot of the hill stands a huge ice house, its
shore side serried with galleries along the entire front, with inclined
ways extending from the water to the top of the house, and a connecting
bridge or runway between each gallery and the incline. Alongside of
the incline is discovered a power-house and tool-room, and at a little
distance large barns and dwellings. From the foot of the incline
leading out into the lake is seen a dark line, which branches out and
becomes a large blot on the clear white surface. A closer inspection
reveals an animated scene, of men armed with strange weapons attacking,
with great vigor, fields of ice, which they detach from the main
surface, and on which they navigate the open water, already stripped
of its frozen crystals. All around are seen teams and horses drawing
huge loads of snow to the distant shores, plows and markers, crossing
and recrossing the cleared surface, and long lines of ice blocks, which
are being floated along the channels to the incline, where the puffing
engine imparts motion to swiftly gliding, endless chains, which catch
up the waiting cakes and whisk them away up the incline and into the
ice house, looking as though they were endowed with life-motion and
were traveling of their own volition.