Did it not occur to you that you could make home-made ice, supply the refrigerator in coldest weather, and make ice-cream whenever you want it? All you need is the cold weather and a heavy tin pail. Fill the pail with clean water some clear, cold night and stand it where it will get the greatest exposure. If the mercury is a little below zero it will freeze a coat of ice two or more inches thick on top and sides of the pail. Turn the pail upside down on a bench and turn enough hot water over it to loosen the pail; then take it off. The ice on the bottom will be thin. Break this and dip out all of the water, but about two inches. This will freeze very quickly in cold weather and you can put in more. Keep filling it up until your ice pail is solid. It is then ready for the refrigerator. From making one block of ice in a heavy tin pail it is an easy step to making a winter supply to store in sawdust where the sun cannot melt it during a thaw and where you can get at it when needed. From this the logical conclusion is that a man and his boys could make a supply of ice for both summer and winter by following the same tactics. How well I remember the hardships of the ice harvesters of my home neighbourhood. The ice had to be cut in the river three miles away, and hauled up a bad hill. If the roads were good the ice was bad as a rule. Good sleighing meant ice covered with snow. There was always anxiety for fear we should not get a supply, and often the houses were filled with thin cakes, for fear the cold weather was over for the year. Then the hauling and the cutting in the bitter weather was bad for men and teams. The ice was river ice and we knew it was unsafe. A writer in _Country Life_ describes how he made his supply of home-made ice. He first had a tinner make heavy tin boxes of a size convenient to handle. He had them made an inch smaller at the bottom than at the top and the top was bound over a heavy wire. When the cold weather came the clean pans were filled from the well. The cakes were turned out of the pans next day and dipped and filled just as described above, as solid cakes formed. These were packed in the ice house for the summer's supply as fast as made. The cost was less in time and cash, than putting up "wild ice," even including the cost of pans, which can, of course, be used over and over, year after year. CUTTING SEED POTATOES [Illustration: For cutting seed potatoes]