204 CHYMISTRY APPLIED TO AGRICULTURE. 



they are not killed till two days after their arrival, and in 

 the interval are allowed only water : before being killed, 

 they should be bled freely, that all the blood may be drawn 

 out of the body ; and even after using this precaution, it is 

 necessary, when the meat is cut up, to remove the blood 

 very carefully from the pieces. 



The carcasses should not be cut up till the animals have 

 been dead twenty-four hours, and when this is done, all the 

 marrow must be carefully removed from the bones. 



The salt employed should be perfectly clean, and of a 

 fine and heavy kind : the fine salt of Portugal is esteemed 

 the best. 



The proportion of salt to meat should be in volume, as 24 

 to 100. If only the Lisbon salt be used, the proportion is 

 as 2 to 7^ : in general the proportion in weight is as 1 of 

 salt to 6 of meat. 



That the salt may penetrate the meat quickly, the salters 

 have a leather guard or a glove shod with iron upon the 

 right hand ; this glove is composed of two or three pieces 

 of sole-leather, united by nails with rough, broken heads ; 

 a strap of leather serves to keep it on, and it thus forms a 

 sort of flesh-brush, with which the blood can be pressed 

 out of the meat, and the salt rubbed into it. Each piece 

 of meat passes through the hands of a series of salters, 

 who execute upon it the same operation, and when it arrives 

 at the last, who is the most experienced and skilful, he 

 examines to see if there be any defect in it, any vein which 

 requires to be opened ; he corrects the defects, opens the 

 veins, rubs in more salt, and throws it into the cask of 

 salted pieces : in this it remains in the air eight or ten 

 days, the salt penetrates into it, and is turned into brine : 

 at the end of this time it is taken out and barrelled. After 

 the meat is removed from the cask, the brine is thrown into 

 a trough, and a layer of salt put at the bottom of the cask ; 

 upon this is placed a layer of meat, and thus alternately 

 till the cask is full. Attention must be paid to putting the 

 pieces of inferior quality at the bottom of the cask, those 

 of the better kind in the middle, and the best at top. When 

 the meat is all packed in, it must be pressed down with a 

 weight of fifty pounds, and the cask closed. 



There must afterwards be a hole bored in one end of the 

 cask, to blow into, in order to be sure that it does not leak : 

 if no air escapes, the hole is closed again : if the contrary 

 be the case, the aperture through which it passes is sought 



