23tt DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 



scribed, must be sprinkled over the flitches, etc., and then they must 

 be laid one over the other in a slate trough, or a wooden trough lined 

 with lead, to the number of half a dozen ; in the course of twenty- 

 four hours, or forty-eight hours, according as the salt is converted into 

 brine (and this will depend on the weather — in frosty weather the meat 

 will not take the salt, and in moist weather it is apt to spoil), the sides 

 are removed, rubbed, replaced in inverse order, the top at the bottom, 

 with a little fresh salt sprinkled between each course, and the brine 

 thrown over the whole. In favorable weather for curing, once turning 

 and replacing will be found enough, and will not occupy more than a 

 week. 



Bacon is cured in very different ways. For domestic use, it is usually 

 laid upon a table, and salt, with a little nitre added, well rubbed in, first 

 on one side and then on the other, either with the bare hand or the 

 salting-glove. Some straw is then placed upon tlie floor of an out-house, 

 a flitch laid thereon, with the rind downward — straw laid above this, 

 then another flitch, and so on ; above the whole is placed a board, and, 

 heavy stones or weights above all. In three weeks or a month the meat 

 is suflficiently salted, and is hung up on hooks in the kitchen rafters. 

 The general practice of burning wood and turf in Irish kitchens, imparts 

 a sweetness to the bacon thus saved that is not to be met with in any 

 which you can purchase. 



Another method is as follows : — prepare a pickle, by boiling common 

 salt and nitre in water ; mix, for a single hog, of tolerable size, one pound 

 of coarse brown sugar, with half a pound of nitre ; rub this well in with 

 the salting-glove, then put the meat into the pickle, and let it lie in this 

 for two days ; afterward take it out of the pickle, and rub it with salt 

 alone, then put it back into the pickle. 



For a mild cure — form siveet pickle^ by boiling molasses with salt and 

 water ; rub the meat with sugar and nitre — add a small portion of strong 

 pickle to the meat — put the meat into this, and let it lie in it for about 

 three weeks. If there be any spare room in the cask, fill up with 

 molasses — eight pounds of salt; one pound of nitre, and six pints of 

 molasses will about sufl5ce for each hundred weight of meat; and will 

 take about five gallons of water. 



In about three weeks — less or more time being required according to 

 size — take the meat out of pickle, and hang it in the drying-house. While 

 in the drying-house, the flitches should be hung, neck downward. You 

 may cut out the ham, and trim the flitch according to fancy — nearly 

 every county in England has in this respect a fashion of its own. 



You then remove your hams and bacon to the smoking-house ; they 

 should not be suff"ered to touch each other ; with this precaution you may 

 hang them as close as you please. Smoke-houses are of every dimension, 

 but the smallest answer as well as the most extensive. Before suspend- 

 iug the meat in the smoke-house, it should be previously well rubbed 

 over with bran. The fire is made of saw-dust, which burns with a low 

 smouldering glow, giving out far more smoke than if actually flaming. 



In the process of smoking, your meat will lose from about fifteen to 

 twenty pounds per hundred weight — a fact necessary to be borne in mind. 



Sometimes the hogs are killed before they arrive at full size, and 



