94 KEEPING PIGS- [No. 



hold a flitch of bacon. Lay in one flitch ; then put 

 in more ashes ; then the other flitch ; and then cover 

 this with six or eight inches of the ashes. This will 

 effectually keep away all flies ; and will keep the 

 bacon as fresh and good as when it came out of the 

 chimney, which it will not be for any great length of 

 time, if put on a rack, or kept hung up in the open air. 

 Dust, or even sand, very, very dry, would, perhaps, 

 do as well. The object is not only to keep out the 

 flies, but the air. The place where the chest, or box. 

 is kept, ought to be dry ; and, if the ashes should 

 get damp (as they are apt to do from the salts they 

 contain,) they should be put in the fire-place to dry, 

 and then be put back again. Peat-ashes, or turf-ashes, 

 might do very well for this purpose. With these 

 precautions, the bacon will be as good at the end of 

 the year as on the first day ; and it will keep two, and 

 even three years, perfectly good, for which, however, 

 there can be no necessity. 



152. Now, then, this hog is altogether a capital 

 thing. The other parts will be meat for about four 

 or five weeks. The lard, nicely put down, will last 

 a long while for all the purposes for which it is wanted. 

 To make it keep well there should be some salt put 

 into it. Country children are badly brought up if 

 they do not like sweet lard spread upon bread, as we 

 spread butter. Many a score hunches of this sort 

 have I eaten, and I never knew what poverty was. I 

 have eaten it for luncheon at the houses of good sub- 

 stantial farmers in France and Flanders. I am not 

 now frequently so hungry as I ought to be ; but I 

 should think it no hardship to eat sweet lard instead 

 of butter. But, now-a-days, the labourers, and espe- 

 cially the female part of them, have fallen into the 

 taste of niceness in food and finery in dress ; a quarter 

 of a bellyful and rags are the consequence. The food 

 of their choice is high-priced, so that, for the greater 

 part of their time, they are half-starved. The dress 

 of their choice is showy and flimsy, so that, to-day, 

 they are ladies, and to-morrow ragged as sheep with 

 the scab. But has not Nature made the country girls 



