404 REARING AND FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 



stock; the meat is more delicate in flavour and taste, and easier to be raised 

 and kept fat. Hogs from fifteen to eighteen or twenty months old, are the 

 best ages; and weight from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and eighty 

 pounds. Hogs of Jess age than twelve or fifteen months, have too little firm- 

 uess and solidity to retain their juices, and after smoking become hard and dry; 

 the same objection holds good as to weights under one hundred or one hun- 

 dred and twenty. Hogs of two hundred pounds or upwards are too thick and 

 large to be thoroughly salted and smoked; consequently difficult to preserve 

 any length of time. 



Unless the weather is so cold as to endanger its freezing, the hog, after being 

 slaughtered, is suffered to hang out all night so as to become thoroughly 

 cold and stiff, when it will cut up much more smooth and neat. In cutting up 

 I make six pieces from each hog for salting, the feet should always be sawed 

 off instead of being cut off with an axe or cleaver, as it will leave a smoother 

 surface and prevent any place for the lodgment of skippers. The feet should 

 be cut off a little below the joint. The next and most important matter is the 

 salting. It is almost impossible to find two persons who agree as to the best 

 modef some use fine, some coarse salt, some cayenne pepper, some sugar, 

 some molasses, some nitre, and some none, and some again prefer brining. 

 But as I have promised to give you my method, I shall proceed to do so. After 

 cutting up my pork, I select my hams and shoulders, lay them side by side, 

 skin down, on some loose planks elevated at one end to permit the blood to 

 drain off freely; they are then salted, or what is called sprinkled, with the best 

 clean Liverpool ground alum salt. After remaining in this situation for two 

 or three days, or until they become perfectly white, they are then taken up 

 piece by piece and laid on a clean table; to each ham and shoulder, according 

 to size, I put two tea-spoonsful or more of finely pulverized nitre, rubbing with 

 the hand both the flesh and the skin side; it is then well rubbed with salt and 

 laid in a clean tub after putting in as many pieces, side by side, skin down, 

 as the bottom of the tub will contain, I fill up all the interstices with salt, then 

 another layer of meat and salt, and so proceed until the tub is full. In four or 

 six weeks, in a good cellar, it will have absorbed as much salt as it ever will; 

 (you see from this remark, I do not believe in over-salting hams and shoulders.) 

 " Ten days or a fortnight, before taking out of the tubs, I have some young 

 green hickory wood cut and burnt by itself, the ashes collected and sifted; after 

 taking the meat out of the tubs and wiping it dry with a clean coarse towel, it 

 is laid in a wooded box sufficiently large to contain two pieces, the hickory 

 ashes thrown over them and well pressed on with the hand; it very soon forms 

 a hard incrustation over the meat and prevents as well evaporation, drying 

 and dripping, and is also one of the best preventives against bugs and skip- 

 pers. After hanging in the smoke-house for a day or two, the operation of 

 smoking commences, which I continue for three months, or until the first ap- 

 pearance of the green bottle fly. My meat is smoked exclusively with green 

 hickory wood; the green oak will answer very well. It cannot be smoked too 

 much, though witlTthe smoke there should be as little heat as possible; the 

 largest pieces should be hung more immediately over where the fire is made. 

 Early in the spring, say the first of April, or earlier, should the weather be 

 warm, or you discover any of those green coat gentry about your meat-house 

 door, take down your hams and shoulders and pack them away in your salt- 

 ing tubs, placing between each layer of hams or shoulders, pieces of lathes to 

 prevent too much pressure or coming too much in contact, otherwise they will 

 be apt to mould where they press one upon the other. After, filling your tubs 

 in this way until about one foot from the top, fill it up with hickory ashes 

 pressed close. 



This is Mr. JOHNSON'S experience and practice for years 

 past, and in communicating it, he very aptly remarks, that 

 there is "really as much art in cooking a ham as there is in 

 curing it." The best ham ever cured may be wholly spoiled 

 by injudicious cooking. 



One of the best and most successful farmers of Philadelphia 



