THE CULTIVATOR. 
371 
any other part of the carcass of the animal; hence this 
classification will enable the curer to give to each sort 
of meat the required handling necessary for its preserva¬ 
tion, without interfering with the other parts, which, if 
treated in the same way, (I now speak of the finer pie¬ 
ces,) would have their natural juices extracted, become 
hard, and what is commonly but erroneously called 
over-cured. There is also another reason why this 
classification should be made; it is this: That it saves 
much time and labor, when the meat is selecting for the 
scale, by having each quality in separate bulk; the se¬ 
lector has but to go to either, in order to lay his hand at 
once upon the particular piece he wants, without losing 
time or wasting labor in tossing over a pile of meat pro¬ 
miscuously cured. 
When your meat is cured, the next process is the pack¬ 
ing it away for preservation into the tierces, about 
which I deem it unnecessary to say anything; because 
when the meat is selected and scaled, the packing it is a 
mere mechanical process, in which a man can alone be¬ 
come a proficient by practice and experience. It may be 
well though to remark, that when your meat is taken 
out of the curing tubs, it should be washed, and rid¬ 
ded of the impurities extracted by the salt, and gene¬ 
rally in a greater or less degree deposited on the 
surface, and which can be best and most easily done, 
with the aid of water and a good hickory broom; the 
packer should always have by him a knife, and when¬ 
ever he observes an incrustation of those impurities on 
the meat, which the washing had not taken ofl, he should 
use his knife to scrape it off, and if scraping did not 
effect it, he should cut it off. 
When your tierces are packed, they must then be head¬ 
ed and thoroughly driven down in their wooden hoops, 
rolled by, and each tierce have its bung hole bored, and 
then brined with pure, clean brine, made and tested in 
the way before described, except that.no saltpetre should 
be put in it. It is of the utmost importance that this 
brine should be made several days before, in order that 
not only the impurities of the salt, but those of the wa¬ 
ter also, should have time to settle down into a sediment, 
and this sediment should not be disturbed when the brine 
is drawn off. The want of this precaution, has been 
the cause of much complaint, and injury to the meat when 
exposed for sale, from the fact that when the brine was 
put on without first being allowed to clear itself, the 
impurities of both the salt and the water settled upon 
the meat, and made it both slimy and dirty. The 
tierces should remain at least 14 days in this state with 
the bungs open, and whatever the casks may have ab¬ 
sorbed of the brine, should be replenished once, if not 
twice every day, and this continued until the casks will 
absorb no more, and that the brine remains as stationary 
and undiminished, when filled, as though it stood in a 
glass bottle. The necessity for this precaution is obvi¬ 
ous; first, if your staves are not in this way allowed to 
become saturated with brine, and the brine replenished, 
before the casks are finally coopered and shipped, you 
can have no guarantee for your casks not leaking on the 
voyage; and secondly, should this absorption be allowed 
to take place, on the voyage, your tierces in a short time 
will become half empty of brine, and wherever your 
meat then comes in contact with the stave, it will ex¬ 
tract from the wood its coloring matter,—will become 
stained and discolored, and for the want o*f brine, thejj 
meat will become hard and rancid, and perhaps mouldy f 
too. Your tierces after standing at least 14 days will 
take no more brine. They are then ready for the bungs, 
which should be put in with a coarse cloth around them, 
and tightly driven; over each bung a piece of tin should 
be nailed on, but great care must be observed that the 
tacks with which it is fastened are so short as not to go 
through the stave; as, if they do, a leakage will take 
place that may do much harm. 
Then comes the finishing stroke to the whole, namely, 
the putting on of your iron hoops, and the final cooper¬ 
ing of your tierce. As few coopers are in the habit of 
doing such work in the United States, I shall explain the 
process, so that all may understand, and perform it, if 
they will. In the first place, care should be taken to 
clear your house of all salt and brine, in order that the 
hoop iron may be kept as free from it as possible, to 
prevent its rust and corroding. The tierce up-ended, the 
cooper takes off the three first wooden chime hoops, he 
then takes his hoop iron and bends it round the pUee of 
the first hoop, and takes its accurate measure; there he 
then cuts it to the length, and rivets it, which can only 
be well done on the face of a small anvil, or on the side 
of a metal half-hundred weight; he then puts this hoop 
on, (having eased it, by a few blows on the inside of one 
edge, to the shape of the cask,) and drives it to the 
berth of the second wooden hoop, leaving room for a 
wooden guard-hoop on the outer edge of the chime; he 
then strips that end of the tierce of all the remainder of 
its wooden hoops, and takes his hoop-iron and measures 
around the berth of the third wooden bulge hoop, cuts, 
rivets, and shapes it, and then puts it on and drives it 
down, to the place of the second bulge hoop; this done, 
he then puts on his wooden guard bulge hoop, which 
passes over the iron one, and drives it to its place, and 
then drives on the remainder of his wooden hoops, 
finishing with a guard chime hoop outside the iron one, 
and so proceeds on until the whole is coopered. It is 
necessary here to remark, that no iron driver, used per¬ 
pendicularly, as coopers use their wooden drivers on 
wooden hoops, will ever drive an iron hoop to its place. 
There is a proper driver without which the hoops can¬ 
not be driven; it is this: 
Fig. 106 
B, the handle; a, the head on which the blow is 
given, and c, the bite which catches the edge of the 
hoop; this used with a 7 lb. hammer to strike with, will 
drive any iron hoop to its place, but without it, the hoop 
cannot be stretched and driven, and consequently must 
remain imperfect. 
The curing and packing of pork differs somewhat from 
that of beef, but the length to which this article already 
extends, prevents me from going into that subject at pre¬ 
sent, nor is it so necessary to be known to the communi¬ 
ty, for from my knowledge of the trade, of the quality of 
the Irish pork, and of the manner and cheapness with 
which it is produced, I deem it impossible for us in the 
United States to compete in any market with the Irish 
pork, with the hope of realizing a profit for some years 
to come under the present tariff; nor can we count with 
certainty, even under the very best possible manage¬ 
ment, upon any profit being realized by putting beef up 
for the Britishmarket this year, at the prices now pay¬ 
ing for fat cattle in this, the great beef producing coun¬ 
try of the United States. 
At some future period I may again address you on 
this subject, which is of such interest and importance to 
the whole of our community here. 
I remain sir, with respect, yours, &c., 
An Apprenticed Packer. 
Louisville, Ky, 4th Nov. 1845 
CRITICAL NOTICES. 
Editor of Cultivator—I do not pretend that the 
mantle of “ Commentator ” has fallen upon my shoulders, 
yet I wish to make one or two remarks after his manner, 
on matters treated of in the Cultivator. 
On page 292 of the current vol., you say, “ We think 
common experience does not agree with Mr. Robey’s re¬ 
marks about the product of small potatoes, and cutting 
potatoes very small.” It agrees most perfectly with mine. 
I have made many very carefully conducted experiments, 
by weight and measure, on various soils and at different 
seasons, and I have invariably found the product of a 
single eye equal t j> that from a large potatoe. You will 
find this result corroborated in one of your back volumes, 
by the experiments of D. S. Curtis. 
* There are some remarks on garget, in cows, on p. 284. 
I have never tried any thing to reduce the hardness and 
swelling of the bag, so certain in its results, as pigs’ feet 
oil, well rubbed in. 
D. C., on p. 309, objeefs to the decisions made by 
judges, at agricultural fairs, on the comparative merits of 
