Dairying  in  Denmark. 
175 
farm  of  Lehnsgreve  Kraeg-Juel-Wind-Friis,  there  are  140  cows, 
but  the  tenant  manages  to  fatten  about  210  pigs,  or  14  per  cow, 
up  to  at  least  14  cwt.  each  per  annum,  by  using  between  43  and 
50  tons  of  meal  in  addition  to  the  whey  and  butter-milk.  The 
account  of  this  operation  would  probably  stand  thus  : — 
£ s.  d. 
Receipt : 210  pigs  at  1£  cwt.,  315  cwt.  at  27 G30  0 0 
Expenditure : 50  tons  meal  (half  barley  and  half  t q q 
maize)  at,  say  81.  per  ton  / 
Balance  to  pay  for  whey,  buttermilk,  and  attendance  £230  0 0 
In  this  account  I have  taken  the  maximum  quantity  of  feeding 
stuff  and  the  minimum  weight  of  the  pig  ; so  in  actual  practice 
the  account  would  doubtless  be  somewhat  more  favourable.  It 
is  generally  reckoned  that  it  takes  3 lbs.  of  meal  to  make  1 lb. 
of  pork,  so  that  50  tons  of  meal  should  make  333  cwt.  of 
pork,  live-weight,  instead  of  315.  This  difference  alone  would 
increase  the  calculated  profit  by  36?. 
10.  Pig  Killing  and  Curing  Establishments. — A great  many 
of  these  establishments  are  scattered  throughout  Denmark.  In 
Copenhagen  itself  there  are  two  of  considerable  magnitude,  but 
the  processes  employed  differ  considerably  in  detail,  although 
they  are  necessarily  the  same  in  principle.  Messrs.  Hansen 
have  killed  as  many  as  26,000  pigs  in  a year,  besides  buying 
in  the  market  a very  large  number  already  killed ; but  they  say 
that  the  trade  has  recently  fallen  off  to  a woful  extent,  because 
most  Danish  farmers  with  whom  they  deal  make  their  pigs  too 
fat  for  Messrs.  Hansen’s  customers.  The  farmers  decline  to 
alter  their  practice,  because  they  can  always  sell  fat  pigs  at  a 
good  price  in  Hamburg,  whence  they  go  to  the  Rhine  Provinces, 
France,  and  elsewhere.  They  also  complain  that  merchants 
like  Messrs.  Hansen  and  Messrs.  Hayman  want  to  stop  the  pig- 
feeding process  at  the  very  moment  when  it  begins  to  be  most 
profitable,  and  so  convinced  are  they  of  the  truth  of  their  con- 
tention that  they  have  not  yet  been  tempted  to  sell  leaner  pigs 
for  higher  prices  per  lb.  American  bacon  has  not  hitherto 
competed  seriously  with  Danish,  as  the  former  shrinks  so  much 
in  cooking;  and  in  the  year  1880  Danish  was  fetching  on  the 
London  market  just  double  the  price  of  American. 
At  the  factory  of  Messrs.  Hansen,  the  following  are  the 
essential  features  of  the  curing  process  : — the  pigs  having  been 
killed,  they  are  singed  by  means  of  a movable  semicylindrical 
frame  containing  about  120  gas  jets  ; afterwards  the  carcass  is 
divided  into  sides,  and  the  head  taken  off ; and  then  the  sides  are 
