SWINE FOR THE HOME ISIAEKET. 251 



afford to buy fertilizers, and I am trying to get it back into 

 condition by keeping pigs. 



Question. Will Mr. Burnett tell us the difference be- 

 tween ham and bacon ? I think many of our farmers con- 

 found the two things. 



Mr. Burnett. I hardly know how to define the differ- 

 ence ; " ham " means the leg with me. They make bacon of 

 the sides in the South and in England, but they use there 

 what they call a "grazer." Those arc generally herbivor- 

 ous animals. They live on acorns, grass and whatever they 

 can pick up in the South, and are what we call "racers." 

 They are of good size, large frame, but the hams are lean ; 

 and they cure the whole sides, and, in fact, the whole 

 back goes into bacon. With me, "bacon" is the belly- 

 strip. It is not the belly-strip that you generally see : it is 

 trimmed, and it begins upon the back ; two or three inches 

 of the lower part of that strip is cut off. The pieces that 

 go into my little packages of fifteen and twenty-five pounds 

 are only six or eight inches long, and what I call " bacon" 

 is all the rest of the side. These strips are cured by the 

 dry process, by rubbing in salt. It takes four or five weeks 

 to convert the meat into bacon, and those bacon strips cost 

 me a great deal more than any other pork that I pack. 



Mr. Myrick. How do you cure your hams? 



Mr. Burnett. That is something I would not like to tell 

 you unless I can be persuaded that it will be for my pecu- 

 niary advantage. It has cost me a good many dollars to find 

 out how to do it. You seem to forget that I have a good 

 friend here who is also in the pork business. 



Mr. Williams. I wish you would press the question as 

 hard as you can. i Laughter. ] 



Mr. Burnett. I suppose he would give a thousand dol- 

 lars to know how I cure my hams. I will simply say this : I 

 do not cure my hams by dry salting. They are rubbed for ten 

 days and then packed in })icklo from four to six weeks. I 

 will say this, gentlemen, about curing hams, and it is from 

 experience, because for many years I did every part of my 

 pork business myself, up to the extent of 150 pigs a year. I 

 packed my own i)ork, cured my hams and tried my lard with 

 my own hands. I have found out from personal experiencg 



