Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, December 26, 1909, Page 19

PART THREE HALF-TONE PAGES 1 TO 4 THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE. FOR ALL THE NEWS THE OMAHA BEE OEST IN TME WES| OMAHA, SUNDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 26, 1909. SINGLE CO;; FIVE CENTS. HEN CUT OFF LAKE BECOMES A RICH HARVEST FIELD Army of Men Now Busy Gathering Ice that Grows Over Lake’s Surface and Storing It by Thousands of Tons Against City's Needs When Long ’ FTER the fisherman has packed away his tackle and the green of the cat- tail grass has turned to brown out Cut-Of lake, when the maskrat has sealed up the doors of his mud cottage and the croakings of the bulifrog have ceased—after that the cold of the morthland steals down and a deli- cate network of crystals creeps out over the water. That is the begin- ning of the ice coat that the lake is to wear, the first sprouting of the crop that is to give Omaha its sun- daes and high-balls through the long sultry summer. To one who has seen the shim- lake under summer moon in the gay days of the season, when the cances push their inquisi- tive noses up among the rushes and 1ily pads, the lake would today pre- sent a most striking and interesting contrast. The merriment of the summer settlements has ceased and out there across the broad acres of the lake stretches the chill expanse of ice, the one greatest crop of the winter season. An army of work- men is toiling to put away so much as is possible of the fruitage of the cold into big storage rooms, and when sumer smiles again the fec man will be delivering it at your back door at so much a hun- dred weight—how much depends, and the ice man has a chilly heart. To one who has seen the shimmering lake under the summer moon in the gay days of the season, when the canoces push their inquisitive noses ap among the rushes and lily pads, the lake would today present a most striking and interesting contrast. The merri- ment of the summer settlements has ceased and out there across the broad scres of the lake stretches the chill expanse of ice, the one greatest crop of the winter season. An a*my of workmen is toiling to put away so much as is possible of the fruitage of the cold into big storage rooms and when summer smiles again the ice man will be delivering it at your back door at so much a hundred weight— how much depends, and the ice man has a chilly heart. Scene of Activity That lake today presents a picture of most uanusual activity. An army is engaged in stripping the lake of its crystal covering. No Jess than 500 men are scattered over the checker boasd of squares that the markers are making in laying out the “field,” as the lake is called by the ice harvesters. It is & strange looking army, this array of ice harvesters. recruits come from the Tanks of the country’s unempioyed. The typical ice harvester has no home, no country, no aspirations. He is what his foreman calls a “tloater.” He follows the seasons about in an uncertain sort of way, taking the workthat offers for the time. The bosses of the ice army are men of experience and training, but their troops are always just recruits. Some way each winter about the time that the ice is ripe for the cutting the workers show up about the Twelfth street employment agencies, expectant of a job. They time their visits to Omaha well. The “floaters,” as they are known, have come to be a kind of a constant in the ice industry, always to be counted on when they are due. Just how or why they are there for the job no ome knows, not even the wandering work- man himself. There seems to be an intuition that guides this happy- go-lucky laborer in his journeys about the coumtry Out on the ice you will see him, distinctly different from the home loving type that may by chance be represented beside him. This typleal ice man will have his feet tied up in burlap buskins most picturesquely fashioned from stray sacks found by the side of the rallway tracks. The uniqus garment has no lines of beauty, but in its savage sort of way it is highly eficient in giving protection from the cold and a sure footing on the siippery surface of the ice. This lce harvesting is rough work. [t is face to face with the cold, no escape. But the busy laughing men, always moving, as much to keep warm as to satisfy the alert eye of the foreman, take little thought of the rigors that they must suffer. Out on the ice plantations there is always plenty to do. The ice must be harvested in season. There is no time for delay. The thaw ma unless the firm cakes are stowed away in the house the soon fade away into the calm waters of the lake. The perishability of the product engenders a feverish haste in the commands of the bosses which force the men to drive the work along at top speed Vastness of the Field The vastness of the ice fleld on Cut-Off iase is itself an in- centive to endeavor. A few hundred yards of distance on the pain- fully level surface is enough to make the figure of a man tiny in perspective. Once on the ice one feels that e will have to hurry it he is to get anywhere. Then there is a spur in th® sparkle of shimmering snowflakes and the gleam of The ice fleid after the work is well under way presents the aspect of a mammoth cheelterboard. The horse-driven marking devices lay it out in squares, the primary figure of the great geo- metrical design that the half ready acres of ice bear. In the preparation of the ice for the cutting a striking process is presented, owing to the condition that exists this year. The heavy snowfall oceurring at the same time with the freezing weather that coated the lake covered the crop with a crisp crust that served both as a protection from dirt and an encumbrance. To remove the snow erust the ice is treated with the action of a discing machine. This is just a disc harrow, the same kind that the Nebraska farmer drives over his flelds to chew up the clods into a cultivatable surface. With team and harrow the plowman winds his lonesome way across the ice ahead of the workers who are to follow. The sharp stesl discs cut the snow into tiny bits, which are easily pushed aside on mering the Its come and the clear ice below ~ by the scraper which follows. Then the ice is left clean and clear for the cutters, who tear it off in blocks to lay away for the seasou of need. After the scrapers come the markers, the men who, with horse- driven tools, cut the ice into forms in which it can be handled. First of all a line across the area to be cut is laid straight and sheer. This is done by the use of a rope stretched taut like a chalk line and a narrow keen chisel mounted on a handle for convemience. This line becomes the base of operations that will stretch over the wide surface of the ice for many an acre. Guided by this base line the markers begin to cut the design of the big checker board. With plows which are in reality only saws, each drawn by a single horse, they cut other lines back and forth across the fleld, following with unerring hand the base line. Every cake of must measure just twenty-two inches on & side. This is the size of the ice cakes you are used to seeing on the rear end of the familiar ice wagon when it makes its expensive July visits to your block. The first plow, a set of saw teeth set in tandem, cuts into the fce for two and a half inches. Then comes the second and yet a third, each cutting about an equal depth. So the marking process is continued until the ice is cut into squares with the defining lines extending more than half way through to the black still water below. The ice is then cleared away for a space, giving working room in open water. Then the work of stowing away the crop begins with real regularity. Up an endless chain conveyor, driven by steam engines, the ice is hauled into the big storage houses, where it will tie protected from the attacks of the weather outside until drawn upon to meet the needs of summer. Mathematics of the Work The ice checker board is cut, or rather broken, along the lines of easy cleavage created by the deep scratches made by the marking plows. The first step in the process is to cut off big bloecks or rafts of ice containing 256 of the primary squares laid out by the markers This makes a “block,” as the ice men have termed it in their own trade vernacular, measuring thirty-two squares long by eight wide. Drivers, men equipped with long pike poles like those that the lumber men use in the log drives in the forest streams of the north, push the floating blocks up to the conveyor, where they are reduced again to size which permit their easy handling in the conveyor system and in the ice houses. The blocks are first counted and laf@ off in the big checker board by the fleld foremen cuts out the blocks at the ends, A man with a coarse saw leaving it utached only aloug one sife. This edge is cracked loese by the use of the “spudders,” heavy, straight, two-tined forks, by which the ice can be readily broken sasceFuiding A Raft To The ChuteSeooas . feBlocking 0ff The Rafts'~~ lines in by the With - the along the seratehed markers. biock broken trom the field it can be started down the chan- nel toward the eleva= tor. As a block con- tains often S0 much as twenty tons of ice it is not to be put in motion without an effort. The drivers strain and push at the block until its inertia is overcome. Ouce started the block is moved along with little effort and cne driver frequently can push three or four of them. When the cutting takes the workers far afield the horses are pressed into service and long rafts of blocks are pushed up the conveyors along the channels left by the cutters. Its Last Breakage Before the ice reaches the comveyor belt it must be reduced several times to more convenient sizes. This is accomplished by groups of men stationed at points along the channel close to the point where the ice is delivered from the lake water to the endless chain elevator. At the first station, usually about a hundred feet from the place where the conveyor chain comes rattling up from the water below, men with “spuds” crack the blocks into strips measuring two of the primary squares in width and four in length. This work is done without arvesting the motion of the ice as it swings into the last turn of the channel. The men become remark- ably deft with the tools and but a single motion suffices to throw the blocks around the bend in the channel and break off the smaller cakes. The cakes of ice are kept flowing into the ice houses in a continuous stream. The loss of motion would mean the loss of energy and im plants where during the season perhaps a hundred thousand tons of ice are handled every operation must be reduced to its lowest and simplest terms. The labor represents practically the whole cost of the ice and so whatever economy taere is to be acecomplished must be in the best possible utilization of the labor on the ice fleld loose With this second subdivision the eakes of ice are floated along into a more permanent channel which delivers them to the conveyor. The sides of this channel are lined with heavy planking so that the constant grind of the passing cakes will not wear the edges away The ice for perhaps the entire summer supply of a big storage concern may all go through this narrow channel of about ten feet in width and the moving miles of floating ice would soon tear away the naked edges of the passage. . The sides of the channel are lined with platforms and runways, with here and there a crossing wide enough secure footing for the pike men, or drivers, urge the floating cakes along. The ice is close upon the <onveyor when it subdivision into eakes containing but to give who is subjected two of to a final the primary of Habits of Exercise present occupant of the White immediate prede- ouly presidents given to regular exercises, As to the early presidents, they lived in an age when tennis and golf were unknown in this country, and not one of them would have thought of boxing or single stick as a mode of exercise. The Virginians all rode on horseback, and George Washington, an active outdeor person all his life, although he thought himself ofd when Le entered upon the presiden was still fond of riding. It was as president in New York and Philadeiphia that he first found himseif a regular and permanent resident of a consid- erable city, though he took what opportunity cessor are that and plantation. plantation. In New York he drove out in his state coach, rode on horseback and occa- sionally walked the streets with that great stride of his that all men who saw him ever after remembered, but he must have missed his accustomed open-air life of camp and His health was ordinarily good in spite of his changed mode of life, though he nearly died of anthrax in New York. The Virginians who followed Washington in the presidency, and John Adams, liked to get away from the seat of government to their country homes, where they all lived much in the open air, though not oune of them was so active a man as their the Several Presidents he could to get away to Mount Vernon, and once there, resumed his regular outdoor life, riding and waiking for hours d predecessor. The truth is that Washington, whom most persons think of as born to lux- ury, probably endured more genuine physical hardship than the poorest man that ever oc- cupied the chair Jefferson, like the other Virginians, rode on horseback, but it is probable that he went on foot to his first inauguration in spite of the picturesque tradition of his tying his horse to the fence about the capitol grounds. He took his greatest pleasure at his planta- tion. All the eariy presidents after the removal of the capital to Washington appeared freely and unattended on the streets and upon foot, for the smallness of the pepulation pre- vented them from attracting crowds. John (Continued on Page Three.) y aver the great Hot Days of Summer Come Again squares. T final the pike m range of th belt, which is with a shove n force the ice into the each of t onstantly rising from the Water at the end of the channel. Up the chute the conveyor pulls the cakes at high speed, dumping them off onto inciined planes, which whirl the runs’” or platforms that run along the sides of the ice houses, ching the open deors of room, where 2 couveyot ice into the the ice reaches of the At stand esting place for the rest winter stations this along route men ready amming up into structing the passages. steady movement of the stuff means a great deal of activity and dextrous effort. These men are equipped with sharp-pointed pike poles like those used out on the lake in the big channels, but they are lighter and with shorter handles. The ice goes sailing down the chutes into the storage rooms at a high rate of speed. At the end of the chutes it is delivered to the packers, who put it up in piles which as the harvest adva s mount close to the roof. These piles are separated by several inches of air space which allows drainage and veatilation when the ice slowly meits through the summer season. The men who stow away the ice within the houses are the skilled of barvesting force. They are paid the top wages, which means that they receive about 25 cents an hour. As the ice passes along the chutes Into the houses it is subjected to inspection and defective or dirty cakes are thrown off and discarded When the house is filled the top of the big mass of ice is covered with a layer of hay or straw several feet thick to protect it fram the heat that fliters through the roof. The preservation of the ice depends on keeping it insulated from the heated atmosphere out- side. The big ice houses are double walled, with an aif space of twelve inches between. This layer of air suffices to keep the light and heat from penetrating to the Inner wall which lies next to the fce. With this protection the ice simply cares for itseif Snow Helps Much The snow which covered the first crop of ice this season, while it meant more labor and expense, insured a finer quality of ice than has been cut from the lakes of eastern Nebraska for many years. The snow blanket effectually covered and laid the dust of the roads and flelds about the lakes, preventing coatamination of the lake's surface from that source, and again it covered the young ice as soon as formed and preveanted the accumulation of stray matter in the ice itseif. from reaps The slippery ab- laborers the particles of When the protective covering of snow is swept aside it leaves the ice clean and clear. The visitor to Cut-Off lake finds a mirth-provoking reminder of the gay days of summer on the water. At regular intervals about the shores of the lake are signs bearing a warning to each and every person that he must not swim in the lake without a bathing suit. With some hundred acres of ice about, a landscape eovered with snow and the breezes driving a temperature of 4 degrees below zero into one’s anatomy, the suggestion of at least the protection of a bathirg s seems almost ulnecessary. When once the ice field is marked off into squares the harvesters are put considerable pains to keep the lake from undoing their work. When the blocks are cut out of the fleld the exposed edge of the ice is in danger of being overfowed by the water, which in freezing fills again the cuts of the checker board made by the s. To prevent this a gang of workmen is kept busy making little dams of snow in the ends of the tiny cracks cut by the markers next to the water’s edge. to The finest of the natural ice produced is that taken from the second cutting, when the weather continues cold enough to freeze over again the area stripped of the first of fce has a wonderful purity. The are bright and clean. 0p. The second e D blg translucent slabs of biue What Omaha Uses The consumption of ice in Omaha is high. The dealers estimate that about mearly half a million tons are aanually required by the eity and its industries. The packing houses require thousands of tons of in the refrigeration of the trains which carry their products out to the world. Then a great city is to be supplied at home. The patural ice is much cheaper than the artificial product. The big ammonia gas freezers produce ice at an average cost of between $1.75 and $2 a ton, according to the statements of the manufacturers. The natural ice can be stowed away for the summer at less than half of that when weather conditions are favorable The annual ice harvest gives employment to about 1,000 men In and about Omaha and frequently at a time when other work for the laborer is hard to find. The big packing houses of South Omaha and the dealers of the city, including the refrigerating plants, all take advantage of the ice crop to store up the winter's cold. The ice houses about the lakes within an easy radius of Omaha cover many acres of land. Most of these big ice houses are served wifh their own special system of railway tracks, over which the thousands of tons of ice mpust be handled in its distribution to the consumers, Today finds the ice harvesters at work on Cut-Off and Seymour lakes in large numbers, while ancther big force is cutting the erop at Ashland for the use of a big packing concern. The fee cutting began this year much earlier than is usual and the storage com- panies will probably be able to fill their houses. The large produe- tion of natural ice they intimate may have a tendency to keep nrices down in the summer. The natural ice crop is always, however, reinforced with several thousand tons daily of artifictal lce. ice