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Co-operative Bacon Curing. 



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industry in the United Kingdom. The methods which were 

 in use then were of the most primitive character, and con- 

 sisted, for the most part, of simply burying the flitches or 

 sides of bacon in dry salt or immersing them in a saturated 

 solution of salt, the meat being allowed to remain there until 

 the tissues became impregnated with salt. The process was, 

 of course, a destructive one, and the product was not attrac- 

 tive to the palate. The farmers in those days were bacon 

 curers in a rough-and-ready way, and the tradition lingers 

 in Cumberland, Westmorland, and Yorkshire that the best 

 bacon is still obtainable on the farms amongst the hills. It 

 is unquestionably a fact that, occasionally in Yorkshire, it 

 is possible to find hams which are of quite a special flavour, 

 and which cannot be imitated in modern curing cellars. But 

 the practice of curing on the farm is gradually passing away 

 and is being replaced by modern bacon factories, in which 

 the business is organised and reduced to an exact science. 



An early reference to bacon curing in Scotland will be 

 found in Robert Henderson's "Treatise on the Breeding of 

 Swine and the Curing of Bacon, with Hints on Agricul- 

 tural Subjects," 1814, and it would appear from this account 

 that the process of curing bacon was at that time carried on 

 under great difficulties. 



In Ireland it is said that a bacon factory was carried on at 

 the town of New Ross in Co. Wexford for 200 years, and 

 that large quantities of pickled pork were prepared there 

 for the British Navy. Of curing bacon, however, as it is 

 understood at the present day, there does not appear to have 

 been any development in Ireland before the middle of last 

 century. Factories then began to be formed, particularly in 

 the province of Munster, and at the present day there are 

 nine factories in that province, with a capacity of about 

 15,000 pigs per week. 



In the whole of the United Kingdom, however, the number 

 of bacon factories is probably not more than fifty, though 

 there are naturally many hundreds of smaller curers, not 

 only on the farms, but amongst pork purveyors. 



Co-operation and Bacon Curing in Denmark. — The 

 greatest impetus to the development of bacon curing was 

 given in 1887, when Danish pigs were prohibited from 



