FIG. 92. SECTION OF FLOOR AND CEILING.
The top story is eight feet high in the center. The floor is one-inch matched stuff, laid on paper. The sides and ceiling are lathed and plastered. It makes a cool room, pleasant to work in or to store grapes and other fruits in baskets, as the veranda on the west side has a flat roof with a door opening on it, which renders it very convenient for loading or unloading. The veranda is six feet wide on the two sides.
A galvanized iron ventilating tube, two feet in diameter, runs from the fruit to above the roof, to carry off the heated air. Other ventilating doors should be close to the floor and left open at night, thus making a cool draft all night through the fruit room. The doors are to be closed air-tight early in the morning; the room above can be ventilated through the shaft all day, drawing off the heat from the roof.
Pure air and plenty of it being required in a house of this description, its location should be well chosen. The prevailing winds and surrounding buildings or other features can be noticed in selecting a site.
In Removing Fruit from storage room, it is always desirable to let the temperature gradually rise to that of the external atmosphere. Otherwise the fruit, being removed at once from a cool room, being cooler than the external atmosphere, condenses moisture on its surface which, unless removed, may cause decay after the fruit is packed for shipment or sale.
CHAPTER X.
Iced Foods and Beverages.
Recipes for Iced Foods and Drinks—Ice Creams of every Sort and Description—Fruit Mashes, Sherbets and the like—Other Iced Dishes.
There are few who do not thoroughly enjoy a dish of well made ice cream or a glass of some refreshing iced beverage.
The addition of an ice house to the farm equipment is the connecting link which will supply these luxuries. Few entertainments are complete with ice cream omitted, and as it falls to the lot of the charming wives and daughters to dispense the cordial hospitality for which American farmers are famous, a few choice recipes are presented here for their consideration. The ice crusher illustrated in [Fig. 93] is very convenient for breaking ice for the freezer or for iced drinks. It is an improvement over the common method of breaking the ice in a bag with a mallet.