CHAPTER XXI. 



Slaughtering and Curing 



Of course the most favorable season, generally, for 

 slaughtering and safely caring for his pork by the farm- 

 er, is, all things considered, the early weeks of winter. 

 If the hogs have been fattened in the months of most 

 suitable weather, that is, in autumn, when it could be 

 done most economically, they are ready, and the tem- 

 perature of winter in most latitudes is such that there is 

 almost no danger of the meat's souring or spoiling be- 

 fore the process of curing is gotten well under way. Be- 

 sides, there is an absence of flies in the cold weather. 

 The great packing institutions, with their facilities for 

 cooling and refrigerating, can carry on their slaughter- 

 ing operations throughout the entire year; in fact, in- 

 stead of as formerly, they now kill more hogs in the 

 warm months than in winter, but this would be entirely 

 impracticable for the ordinary farmer. 



On the farms little progress has been made in slaugh- 

 tering and curing beyond the primitive methods in use a 

 century ago, notwithstanding that in city packing es- 

 tablishments such methods have been, in many respects, 

 completely revolutionized or abandoned. The old way 

 of stunning the hog by knocking on or shooting in the 

 head, freeing of blood by cutting into the neck to sever 

 tlie jugular vein, scalding in a barrel partly filled with 

 water not quite boiling, into which a quart of wood 



