68 BALM. 



cover with your fresh pickle, poured on cold. Keep your 

 bacon, while curing, under the brine by large weights or 

 heavy stones. 



Saltpetre dries meat, and is not used in such large quan- 

 tities as formerly. I have known many good housewives 

 have their pork rubbed with half the salt intended to be 

 used, and covered for a few days, and save the remainder of 

 the salt to be rubbed in with the sugar and saltpetre. Mo- 

 lasses is sometimes used for bacon instead of sugar. 



Hams are sometimes rubbed with salt for a day or two, 

 and put into a brine strongly impregnated with wine and 

 sweet herbs. This does very well for small hams, that are 

 intended for immediate family consumption. 



Hams that are to be kept for some months, after being 

 dried and smoked, should be put into a coarse canvas bag 

 and whitewashed, and hung in some cool and dry place. 



Bacon should be made only in the cool months. 



If there is no place where you can send your bacon to be 

 smoked, you can smoke it (but of course imperfectly) by 

 taking out the end of an old cask, and filling the cask half 

 full of green sawdust, and branches of some odoriferous 

 trees, and bits of oak bark, and putting in some hot ashes 

 and bits of heated iron, and raising one part of the cask by 

 placing a small stone under it, so as to make a draft of air. 

 Put pieces of iron across, and hang the bacon over on pot- 

 hooks or pieces of coarse rope. Cover it. Be careful that 

 it merely smoulders and smokes, and does not ignite. 



The sugar-cured bacon of Virginia, and especially the 

 hams, are justly entitled to their reputation. Their hogs 

 mostly run about, and feed on acorns. 



BALM (Melissa officinalis). This herb mixed with 

 honey and vinegar, steeped and strained, is sometimes used 

 as a gargle for a sore and inflamed throat. It does not re- 



