10 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEK. 



Jan. 



increase so does the crop of seed, not so 

 much from the increased amount grown, as 

 the greater proportion saved. 



Our readers will bear in mind that we 

 recommend sowing grass seed very early in 

 the spring with wheat, rye or barley, and 

 not with oats or other heavy foliage grain ; 

 to roll instead of harrowing ; to see that the 

 ground is in fine tilth, and that the seed is 

 not a year old ; to have barns if they wish 

 to save it to advantage, a good barn floor is 

 quite necessary. Rural. 



Pork Packing in Chicago. 



In Chicago there is two classes of pork 

 buyers, one of them buying on foot, and 

 the other the dressed carcass. A part of 

 hoth classes of dealers purchase to ship 

 East, in the same condition that they pur- 

 chase them, while the others packs in bar- 

 rels or tierces. We will now take our 

 readers through one of the packing estab- 

 lishments for dressed hogs — it is that of 

 Messrs. Leland & Mixer, near the Illinois 

 Central Depot. The building is forty feet 

 front and near two hundred deep, divided 

 into two compartments, with a heavy wall 

 and double iron doors. In the basement 

 is a large number of tubs, which hold two 

 thousand pounds of hams each, or ten bar- 

 rels. On one side the shoulders and sides 

 are dry salted and corded up like stone or 

 wood ; in another part of these two great 

 underground rooms are huge tiers of bar- 

 reled side pork ready for market. The large 

 quantity of lard is sold nearly as fast as it 

 is rendered. On the first floor is the cut- 

 ting room, the store room and the oflBce, 



The dressed hogs are purchased from 

 teams and at the depots. The owner seldom 

 sells his own hogs, even if he is present, 

 finding it to his advantage to pay the usual 

 commission instead of trying his hand at a 

 business that he is little accustomed to. 



The hogs are unloaded and put in the 

 weighing room ; nearly all of them are 

 frozen when received, it is therefore necess- 

 ary that they be thawed before they can be 

 Tracked, for this purpose they are put in the 



steam room, which is large enough to hold 

 six hundred hogs, and is warmed by the 

 waste steam, which is led around the room 

 in small pipes, and at internals of a few 

 feet, permits the escape of a small jet of 

 steam. The hogs being hung up, this warm 

 atmosphere thaws them in four or five hours, 

 when they are passed to the cutting room, 

 here they are cut up, the lard sent to the 

 second floor for rendering, and the cut 

 pieces below, where they are packed — the 

 hams in the pickling tubs, the shoulders 

 and part of the sides dry salted for bacon, 

 the feet to the souse room, and the heads to 

 the lard room above. A large portion of 

 the second floor is filled up with packing 

 barrels, made of thoroughly seasoned timber, 

 but to insure perfect safety in that respect, 

 they are further submitted to some weeks of 

 thorough seasoning, which places them be- 

 yond risk of leakage. The salt used in 

 packing is solar salt, but for the hams, 

 Liverpool ground salt is mostly used. We 

 would advise our farmers that the Ononda- 

 gua solar salt is much more valuable than 

 the common boiled salt for packing — its 

 cost is but a trifle more. It is a matter of 

 surprise to us that our country salt dealers 

 do not keep it on sale ; if once our farmers 

 get in the habit of using it they will not 

 use the other if they can avoid it. 



The basement is kept well aired and cool. 

 It is well known that pickled pork cures 

 much better in a cool dry cellar than a 

 damp warm one. If any of our readers 

 have a warm, damp cellai:, we would advise 

 them not to put their pork in it, but rather 

 in some open shed, where it will not injure 

 it to be frozen. Hams in pickle should not 

 freeze, for they should be taken out every 

 three days and re-packed, as recommended 

 in our last number. 



The lard room is one of the most inter- 

 esting, here is a steam boiler which furnishes 

 the steam to render the lard. The vat or 

 kettle containing the lard is upon the plan 

 of the "Mott Furnace," steam at forty 

 pounds, instead of fire, being the heating 



