18 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



method of salting often astonishes some of the new emi- 

 grants from Yankee land. Nobody ever made better 

 bacon for 15 years than I have, and I never use a pork 

 barrel. I sprinkle about 2 oz. saltpetre and 6 lbs. of N. Y. 

 salt to a hundred of pork, piled up on a bench, or in the 

 corner of the smoke-house, like a pile of bricks. I let it 

 lie about as many days as the hams weigh pounds each — 

 overhauling once. Then hang up far away from the fire, 

 in a very open and airy smoke-house, and smoke well with 

 hickory or other sweet wood. Then draw loose cotton 

 bags over each joint, and tie round the string by which 

 the meat hangs. Do this before the flies come in the 

 spring, and you may let it hang as long as you like, and 

 it will be good — at least, mine is so. For many years our 

 house has not been without a supply of this most excel- 

 lent kind of meat, which is a much more healthy food 

 than the eternal round of fresh beef, &c. 



But to return to my subject. On the 20th of January, 

 1846, I killed 5 hogs, about a year and a half old, and one 

 about half that age, of the Berkshire and China breed, 

 fattened upon corn fed in the ear, the quantity not 

 counted, as it was too cheap to regard that. 



The following table will show the weight of each hog, 

 and the weight of each piece of meat cut for bacon. 



