246 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



well cooked and served up the good things of this life, though he be now among 

 the poorest of your friends ? As great artistes ia your lines respectively, who 

 denies your genius ? 



" The cook and sewer encb his talent tries ; r 



In various figures scenes of dishes rise." 



If, indeed, honor arise from well acting our parts, who better performed his part, 

 or who was better pleased to serve the " quality," than Ben ? How many of the 

 "old set" will agree with us that we could better have spared many a whiter 

 man 1 For one, we hope never to be ashamed to do justice to honesty and ex- 

 cellence, displayed by whatever color, in whatever sphere of life. 



As, however, returning to our subject, wo have no ambition to taste head or 

 tail of a five-year old brawner, we come down to later times, and, as the reader 

 will agree, to better eating. 



We have now been residing in New- York, noleris volcns, since the day, memo- 

 rable in the annals of the turf, when Peytona beat Fashion, the latter being out 

 of condition, in two straight heats of four miles ; and we can safely say that, in 

 all that time, we have never seen a real red, juicy, right-sized, well-shaped, high- 

 flavored, properly smoked, corn-fed Aa?« — neither too salt nor too fresh, but just 

 the right thing ! — one of which it might be truly said, " the nearer the bone, the 

 sweeter the meat" — such as one meets with, almost universally, on the tables 

 of the respectable middling farmers in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Ken- 

 tucky, and, we suppose, Tennessee — and especially, if we must say it, according 

 to our personal experience, those of Montgomery County, Maryland, where hams 

 possess an indefinable richness, if we may so say — a leetlc better than is generally 

 to be met with even in the States named, where bad bacon is as rarely to be 

 found as a really high-flavored, choice ham north of the Hudson. 



Reared in the country, and in the very region of persimons, acorns, beech- 

 nuts, and hickory-nuts, and chestnuts, and Indian corn — where hogs run and root, 

 enjoying, by universal suffrage, the " largest liberty," until they are " put up" in 

 October to be fattened — we may, without presumption, undertake to tell the how 

 of good bacon, and the ichy it is that he who would have it of a quality that 

 prompts you to scrape the bone for the last particle to be got of an old ham, may 

 never expect to meet with it, except by purchase, either from Westphalia, or 

 from the region of Indian corn, large farms and open ranges in our own country. 

 In what we have here undertaken, the obvious course would be to descant some- 

 what on the various breeds of hogs, as on this the size of the animal and his hab- 

 its, his physical capacity, the quality of his meat depend. Some, especially thr 

 laro-e breeds, have thick skins and a coarse grain of meat, while others have thin 

 skins, with a more delicate and juicy fibre. Of this last description we should 

 be disposed to rank the Spanish black hog, such as was introduced more than 

 twenty-five years ago, by that " fine old Commodore" and natural gentleman. 

 Commodore Chaunccy—Tis a great number of very valuable things, indeed, were 

 introduced, about that time, by our old officers of the Navy ; many more than 

 the public have any idea of now, but of which, being at the time, more than' 

 any one else, personally cognizant, it will be our grateful pleasure, some of these 

 days, to render an account. 



The Spanish hog brought by Commodore Chauncey was, if we mistake not 

 (the original or the progeny), presented to the late Robert Smith, formerly Sec- 

 retary of the Navy, and President of the Maryland State Agricultural Society, 

 and, in all places and positions, the gallant and accomplished gentleman. In 

 England they reckon not less than twenty breeds, or breeds under twenty names. 



(534; 



