No. 8. 



Hampshire Bacon. 



247 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 

 Hampshire Bacon. 



Messrs. Editors, — I am an emigrant, a 

 native of Hampshire, England ; that county 

 go famous for bacon — the county of Berk- 

 shire, being as noted for hogs. Now, many 

 of your readers may consider these terms 

 somewhat synonymous, but nothing is more 

 evident to all Hampshire-men, than that 

 there is a wide and essential difference, 

 plainly discernible to four of our five senses; 

 namely, to our sight, smell, taste and feel- 

 ing. To what these differences are owing, 

 might not be so easy to say, but that there 

 is something real in it, is palpable to all; 

 and especially in the fact, that all over Eng- 

 land, it is known and acknowledged. 



Although no longer a practical farmer, I 

 read the Cabinet; for I am like an old 

 stager, and often find myself pawing the 

 ground at the sound of the ploughshare in 

 early spring; feeling extreme interest in 

 every thing that relates to the theory and 

 practice of agriculture, and often turning to 

 your pages with great delight : my last pe- 

 rusal having led me to the re-examination 

 of the cut of the Hampshire hog, page 121, 

 of the fifth volume, which has been the 

 cause of my addressing you at the present 

 time. And here let me ask your readers, 

 whether they do not perceive a peculiar 

 softness in the animal there so faithfully 

 portrayed, indicative of delicacy of texture 

 and tenderness; far different to the rotund 

 form and peculiar thriftiness of the improved 

 Berkshire, which, it is admitted, portend a 

 hardihood in the hog, but which, in my esti- 

 mation, is the cause of a hardness in the 

 bacon. Certain it is, that in Hampshire, 

 we always prefer a deep-sided hog to a bar- 

 rel-shaped animal, knowing that to be the 

 true criterion of "streaky bacon;" but by 

 this, I do not mean a slab-sided brute, but 

 one with a deep side, pretty equal in thick- 

 ness through its whole length, without those 

 enormous masses of muscular meat, forming 

 such protuberances at the shoulders and 

 hams, which have been trumpeted forth as 

 the perfection of the pure Berkshire. There, 

 also, a soft, woolly coat is preferred to a thin 

 shining one — which is again the boast of 

 the Berkshires ; nor do we care so much for 

 the qualification, "to be able to live upon 

 nothing;" satisfied, if they pay for what they 

 eat; as the farmer's business is to grow crops 

 for the support of beast as well as man, and 

 content, if he can bring his hogs to a good 

 market. 



But the fatting of these hogs I believe to 

 be almost peculiar to that county; for, di- 

 verse as may be the articles forming their 



diet at the commencement of the fatting 

 process — some commencing with raw, boiled 

 or steamed potatoes, carrots, parsnips, with 

 a mixture of meal, peas, beans, or oats, &c, 

 yet it is held a sine qua non, that they be 

 finished with barley-meal, mixed either with 

 milk or water. This gives to the meat a 

 peculiar firmness, which prevents waste in 

 cooking, and gave rise to the old adage, 

 " A good hog grows half in the pot." At 

 the time of slaughtering also, they are not 

 scalded, but the hair is singed, by covering 

 them with wheat straw and setting it on 

 fire: this communicates a particular flavour 

 to the meat, and is thought to add much to 

 its good quality; although to those unaccus- 

 tomed to the practice, it might be considered 

 not the most delicate way of doing things. 

 Then again, the salt which is used in curing, 

 is made from sea-water, the crystals large, 

 and quite free from magnesia and other im- 

 purities ; and the most careful rubbing, turn- 

 ing and tending the sides of bacon, is ob- 

 served while lying in the pickling trays ; 

 the process ending, by exposing them, now 

 called flitches of bacon, to the smoke of a 

 smouldering fire made with saw-dust, for 

 many days, in large smoke-houses built for 

 the purpose. All these manipulations at 

 length furnish an article, that, once tasted, 

 the flavour long abideth. 



In my walks, I sometimes meet a fine 

 Neapolitan sow, the property of a gentle- 

 man who purchased the animal at a high 

 price a great distance from home ; and in- 

 curred the expense of her carriage, in the 

 hope of introducing another and a new ex- 

 citement. She is all but destitute of hair, 

 and if I might be permitted, I would ask, is 

 it not rational, is it not natural to presume, 

 that to enable the creature to bear the cold 

 and vicissitudes of the weather, she has been 

 endowed with powers of endurance in the 

 shape of a hard and inflexible texture of 

 skin and muscle, by no means likely to pro- 

 duce that delicate cellular frame of body, 

 so essential, and so observable in the real 

 Hampshire breed of hogs. 



Since writing the above, I have seen at 

 the Union drove-yard, on the Ridge-road, 

 Philadelphia, two pens of 10 hogs, part of 

 them belonging to Mr. Frantz, of Para- 

 dise, Lancaster county, which come up to 

 my standard of the " beau ideal." On all 

 of these the hair is white, soft and fine, but 

 upon four of them the coat is peculiarly 

 long and curling, with a skin of fleshy hue, 

 indicating a mellowness of handling, that 

 cannot be mistaken. Here is the deep fiat 

 side, with an even length from stem to stem, 

 such as is indeed seldom witnessed. They 

 are supposed to weigh from 5 to 700 hun- 



