been the cause of much complaint and injun,' to 

 the meat wheu exposed for sale, from the fact 

 that when the brine was put on without first be- 

 ing allowed to cl(\ir itself, the impurities of both 

 the salt and the water settled ujjon the meat, 

 and made it both slimy and dirty. The tierces 

 should remain at least 14 days in this slate with 

 the bungs open, and w^hatever the casks may 

 have absorbed of the brine, should be replen- 

 ished once, if not twice, every day, and this con- 

 tinued until tlic casks will absfirb uo more, and 

 that the brine remains as stationary and undimin- 

 ished, when filled, as though it stood in a glass 

 bottle. The necessity for this precaution is ob- 

 vious : first, if your staves are not in this way 

 allowed to become saturated with brine, and the 

 brine replenished, before the ca.sks arc finally 

 coopered and shipped, you can have no guar- 

 anty for your casks not leaking on the voyage ; 

 and secondly, should this absorption be allowed 

 to take place on the voyage, your -tierces in a 

 short time will become half empty of brine, and 

 wherever j'our meat then comes in contact with 

 the stave, it will extract from the wood its col- 

 oring matter — will become stained and discol- 

 ored, and for the want of brine, the meat will 

 becottjc hard and rancid, and perhaps mouldy 

 too. Your tierces after standing at least 1 4 days 

 will take no more brine. Tliey are then ready 

 for the bungs, which should be put in with a 

 coarse cloth around them, and tightly driven ; 

 over each bung a piece of tin should "be nailed 

 on, but great care must be observed that the 

 tacks with which it is fastened are so short as 

 not to go through the stave ; as, if they do, a 

 leakage will take place that may do much hann. 

 Then comes the finishing stroke to the whole, 

 namely, the putting on of your iron hoops, and 

 the final coopering of your tierce. As few 

 coopers are in the habit of doing such work in 

 the United States, I shall explain the process, so 

 that all may understand and perform it, if they 

 will. In the first jilace, care should be taken 

 to clean your house of all salt and brine, in or- 

 der that the hoop-iron may be kept as free from 

 it as po.ssible, to prevent its rust and corroding. 

 The tierce up-ended, the cooper takes off the 

 first three wooden chime hoops, he then takes 

 his hoop iron and bends it round the place of 

 the Jirst hoop, and takes its accurate measure ; 

 there he then cuts it to the length, and rivets it, 

 which can only be well done on the face of a 

 small anvil, or on the side of a metal half-hun- 

 dred weight ; he then puts this hoop on, (having 

 eased it, by a few blows on the inside of one 

 edge, to the shape of the cask.) and drives it to 

 the berth of the second wooden lioop. leaving 

 room for a wooden guard-hoop on the outer edge 

 of the chime ; he then strips that end of the tierce 

 of all the remainder of its wooden hoops, and 

 takes his hoop-iron and mea.suros around the 

 berth of the third wooden bulge-hoop, cuts, 

 rivets and shapes it, and then puts it on and 

 drives it down to the place of the second bulge- 

 hoop ; this done, he then puts on his wooden 

 guard bulge-hoop, whicli passes over the iron 

 one. and drives it to its place, and then drives 

 on the remainder of his wooden hoops, finishing 

 with a guard chime hoop outside tge iron one. 

 and so proceeds on until the whole is coopered. 

 It is necessary hero to remark, that no iron 

 driver, used perpendicularly, as coopers u.se 

 their wooden drivers on wooden hoops, will 

 ever drive an iron hoop to its place. There is 

 a proper driver vv'ithout which the hoops cannot 

 be driven ; it is this : 

 (825) 



h 





B, the handle ; a, the head on which the blow 

 is given, and c. the bite which catches the edge 

 of the hoop ; this, used with a 7-lb. hammer to 

 strike with, will drive any iron hoop to its place, 

 but without it. the hoop cannot be stretched and 

 driven, and consequently must remain imperfect. 



The curing and packing of pork differs some- 

 what from that of beef; but the length to which 

 this article already extends, prevents me from 

 going into that subject at present, nor is it ne- 

 cessaiy to be known to the coinniuuity, for from 

 my knowledge of the trade, of the quality of the 

 Irish pork, and of the manner and cheapness 

 \vilh ^vhich it is produced, I deem it impossible 

 for us in the United States to compete in any 

 market with the Irish pork, with the hope of 

 realizing a profit for some years to come, under 

 the present Tariff; nor can we count with cer- 

 tainty, even under the very best possible man- 

 agement, upon any profit being realized by put- 

 ting beef up for the British market this year, at 

 the prices Jiow paying for fat cattle in this, the 

 great beef producing country of the United 

 States. 



At some future period I may again address 

 you on this subject, which is of such interest 

 and importance to the whole of our community 

 here. I remain, sir, with respect, yours, i5cc. 

 An Apprenticed Packer. 



Louisville, Ky. 4th Nov. 1845. 



SOME KXPERIENCE WITH GUANO IN VIR- 

 GINIA THE LAST SEASON. ' 

 Extract of a letter from a gentleman in Maryland. 

 " We have a fine trial of Guano on the Alms 

 House Wheat which I will show you when 

 you come on. Mr. T. S. Pleasants writes me 

 from Petersburg. Va. 20th inst. wanting to pur- 

 chase more Guano of Mr. George, and remarks : 

 ' I have never been able to collect the results of 

 any exact experiments with Guano, or I .should 

 have forwarded them to thee with a great deal 

 of pleasure. Some of those persons who tried 

 it on wheat, thought the increase was verj- con- 

 siderable. Dr. Dupuy, according to the best 

 estimate he could make, thought the increa.se of 

 his was not more than thirty per cent. ; Robert 

 Strachan thought his was enough to pay for the 

 Guano three times, but the season was every 

 way unpropitioua for its action, and whilst some 

 persevere, many more are not disposed to trj' 

 again. Although the past season has been so 

 discouraging to those who have used Guano, I 

 cannot say that my confidence in its virtues has 

 been impaired, and I feel no hesitation in mak- 

 ing another trial. For the very early and the 

 very late crops, its action has been beneficial, 

 but for those which usually mature during the 

 summer and early part of the fall, its applica- 

 tion was attended with no benefit ; indeed, in 

 some cases, as in that of hot fresh manure, some 

 injurj- might have resulted. My crops of cab- 

 bages, of which I raise a good many for the 

 market, are very fine and grown entirely with 

 Guano.' " 



