The Ice Crop: How to Harvest, Store, Ship and Use Ice

by Theron L. Hiles

FIG. 32. JACK GRAPPLE.

FIG. 33. HANDLE GRAPPLE.

FIG. 34. CHANNEL GRAPPLE.

One man should be trained to correctly dress the saws, and then be held responsible for their work. When the teeth are worn short, or the saws are sprung, send them to the ice tool manufacturer, to have the teeth gummed out to their correct size and shape, and the blades straightened and stiffened. Ice plows are frequently rendered useless by improper dressing or careless handling. The range and proportion of the teeth, as they are when new, must be kept up, and the cutting points sharp and keen. The heels and bottoms must be dressed down regularly with the points,—no more, no less. Only a man of known ability should be allowed, under any pretext, to dress the ice plows.

Any delay in plowing may involve the loss of part of the crop, and any detention of the work of those detaching the cakes from the field, from a lack of plowed surface to work upon, may prove to be the cause of an hour or more time lost or frittered away by nine-tenths of the entire force employed, both on the field and in the house. Nine-tenths of the entire wages, for an hour or more, is thus lost to the owner, and an incompetent workman is the apparent cause. The lack of management and system is, more likely, the source of this waste.

Plows which have been worn so they cut hard, need gumming out, or reforging, or both. Plows and markers are the chief cutting implements of the ice harvester. Too much care cannot be taken to make a proper selection, originally. The best plows are now made with steel beams and steel bolts. They are superior to the old style iron plows. The guides used on plows and markers should have no lost motion, at any point, when the guide handle is latched in place. The latest improvements are in the trussed form of guide, which is perfectly rigid, and the double hinge and swivel method of securing the handle to the guide, combined with the pin and mortice latch. This construction produces a plow and guide which has no looseness in any joint, and is so braced that the plow cannot depart from a vertical position unless the guide is raised out of its groove.

All ice cutters who have had their fields marked in curved, instead of straight, lines, with the resulting wrenching or breaking of plow teeth, will appreciate and welcome this improvement. Bars, tongs, and hooks should be kept sharp, and, when out of repair, sent to the maker, to be brought back to a condition of efficiency. The close of the cutting season is the best time to select and ship to the ice-tool maker all implements which require overhauling.

A tool room should be provided, of sufficient size to store all cutting tools, scoops, scrapers, and extras of all kinds that are liable to breakage or rapid wear. Space should be reserved for a filing bench, having a large north light, and a grindstone—driven by power when practicable—for sharpening bars, hooks, and tongs. Where the ice houses are large, and in isolated positions, the tool house, if well fitted up, is of great assistance, affording the means for making repairs of an urgent character. A good set of millwright tools, together with a well-chosen supply of seasoned timber, of such sizes as are used in the various runs and connections, will often repay their cost in a single season. Large boarding houses are often found included in the ice harvester’s inventory. This is a necessity where the storage houses are situated any distance from towns or cities. Several hundred men are sometimes thus accommodated.