VI.] SALTING MUTTON AND BEEP. 97 



of the money ; and more than three times the re- 

 mainder is generally flung away upon the miserable 

 tea, as I have clearly shown in the First Number, at 

 Paragraph 24. I have, indeed, there shown, that 

 if the tea were laid aside, the labourer might supply 

 his family well with beer all the year round, and have 

 a fat hog of even fifteen score for the cost ofthe'teVj 

 which does him and can do him no good at all. 



156. The feet, the cheeks, and other bone, being 

 considered, the bacon and lard, taken together, would 

 not exceed sixpence a pound. Irish bacon is " cheap- 

 er." Yes, lower^priced. But, I will engage that a 

 pound of mine, wnen it comes out of the pot (to say 

 nothing of the taste,) shall weigh as much as a pound 

 and a half of Irish, or any dairy or slop-fed bacon, 

 when that comes out of the pot. No, no : the far- 

 mers joke when they say, that their bacon costs them 

 more than they could buy bacon for. They know 

 well what it is they are doing; and besides, they 

 always forget, or, rather, remember not to say, that 

 the fatting of a large hog yields them three or four 

 load of dung, really worth more than ten or fifteen of 

 common yard dung. In short, without hogs, farming 

 could not go on; and it never has gone on in any coun- 

 try in the world. The hogs are the great stay of the 

 whole concern. They are much in small space; 

 they make no show, as flocks and herds do ; but with 

 out them, the cultivation of the land would be a poor, 

 a miserably barren concern. 



SALTING MUTTON AND BEEF. 



157. VERY FAT Mutton may be salted to great 

 advantage, and also smoked, and may be kept thus a 

 long while. Not the shoulders and legs, but the back 

 of the sheep. I have never made any flitch of sheep- 

 bacon ; but I will ; for there is nothing like having 

 a store of meat in a house. The running to the butch- 

 ers daily is a ridiculous thing. The very idea of being 

 fed, of a. family being fed, by daily supplies, has some- 

 thing in it perfectly tormenting". One half of the 



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