A CONSOLIDATION OF BUEL’S CULTIVATOR AND THE GENESEE FARMER. 
Cult. Vol. VIII.—No. 1. 
ALBANY, N. Y. JANUARY, 1841. 
Cult, & Far. Vol. II.—No. 1. 
PUBLISHED MONTHLY. 
GAYLORD Sc TUCKER, EDITORS. 
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TO THE rSlSKiDS ©F AGRICULTURE. 
In offering to the public the first number of the Eighth 
Volume of the Cultivator, and in tendering to our per¬ 
sonal friends, and the thousands who have already given 
us assurance of their support, the compliments of the 
season, we feel a pleasure in the confidence that the sa¬ 
tisfaction we experience is reciprocal, and that we are 
but exchanging sentiments of kindness and good will. 
We enter upon the year under favorable auspices ; with 
our means of usefulness greatly enlarged ; and the ex¬ 
perience of the past gives us grounds of hope for the 
future. As conductors of the Cultivator, we should be 
doubly ungrateful not to acknowledge the many proofs 
of confidence and kindness we have received. Our 
friends, therefore, who have so cheerfully interested 
themselves in our behalf—those who have so liberally 
and effectively aided us by contributions for our jour¬ 
nal—Conductors of the public press who have copied 
our Prospectus, or noticed our journal—Postmasters 
who have rendered us such services and facilities in the 
transmission of money, &c.—in short, all friends of the 
cause of agriculture into Avhose hands this paper may 
fall, will permit us to wish them peace and prosperity, 
and a happy, thrice happy, New-Year. 
AGRICULTURAL flDBTm 
The friends of agriculture in New-York, will recol¬ 
lect that the annual meeting of the State Agricultural 
Society will be held at Albany on the 2d Wednesday of 
February next. The interests of agriculture demand a 
full and explicit expression of the will of the great mass 
of farmers in the State, with regard to many topics con¬ 
nected with an improved husbandry, the formation and 
support of County Agricultural Societies, semi-annual 
meetings of the State Agricultural Society, the estab¬ 
lishment of Agricultural Schools connected with experi¬ 
mental farms, an Agricultural survey of the State ; in 
short, on all subjects which can advance the cause of 
good farming. In no way, it is believed, can this desi¬ 
rable object be so well attained as by a meeting of far¬ 
mers and those engaged in the cultivation of the soil, 
from all parts of the State : certainly in no way can the 
wishes of the people on the matter be more fully elici¬ 
ted. 
No one can doubt that an efficient State Society, con¬ 
ducted with spirit and ability, serving as a rallying 
point to the friends of Agriculture, holding semi-annual 
meetings in two or more places of the State, developing 
and embodying in a series of reports from able and practi¬ 
cal farmers the best methods of culture, cropping, and 
rotation, would prove of the greatest utility to the coun¬ 
try ; and it can be as little doubted that if the proper 
measures are taken, and the right feelings enlisted, if 
the friends of Agriculture awake to the interests at is¬ 
sue and give a prompt and general attendance, these 
desirable results may be obtained. We would suggest 
to the numerous county or totYn Agricultural Societies 
that are now organized, the propriety of being fully re¬ 
presented at the coming meeting of the State Society. 
These associations, many of which have been formed 
the past year, exhibit the most gratifying proof that 
the people, the farmers themselves, the very individu¬ 
als most interested, have begun to act; and the spirit 
of zeal, liberality, and devotion to the great source of 
state and national prosperity exhibited thus far, we 
hope will not diminish until the end of their organiza¬ 
tion is fully accomplished. 
The time has arrived when the flourishing state of 
the country, and all its great branches of industry, war¬ 
rant the expectation that something will be done by the 
State, to aid in the advancement of Agriculture. Much 
is not asked or desired. The farmers neither wish or 
require Societies with bloated resources, and exercising 
an overshadowing influence, but they ask, and reasona¬ 
bly, from the treasury of the State they so liberally 
aid in replenishing, sums sufficient to give an impulse 
to the County Societies, and enable the State Society to 
perform the ends for which it was instituted. We do 
not presume to dictate, but can there be a reasonable 
doubt that had the legislature appropriated a small sum 
to have been apportioned among the County Societies, 
and distributed as premiums at the late fairs, that the 
State would not have been much the gainer eventually? 
Does any well informed man doubt that if three or five 
thousand dollars ivas appropriated to the formation of 
a Board of Agriculture, and employing one or two Com¬ 
missioners to make an Agricultural survey, that the 
money would not be returned with interest to the cof¬ 
fers of the State ? And if a grant of two or three thou¬ 
sand dollars was annually made to the State Society to 
be expended in premiums at its semi-annual meetings, 
who can doubt that the benefit would far more than 
counterbalance the trifling expenditure. We merely al¬ 
lude to these things, because in this Avay small sums 
may be made to bear most immediately and effectually 
on the prosperity of agriculture. 
We earnestly invite the attention of all well wishers 
to the farming interests to this subject. The legisla¬ 
ture of the State, will not, we are confident, refuse to 
listen to the voice of the people properly expressed, and 
we hope that the meeting which is to be held in Albany, 
on the Second Wednesday of Feb. next, will be so at¬ 
tended as to leave no room for doubt on the subject. 
We publish this month several valuable communica¬ 
tions on these topics which will be read with interest. 
We particularly request the attention of the managers 
of Agricultural Societies to the suggestion of our re¬ 
spected correspondent, T. C. Peters, that the Cultiva¬ 
tor be furnished with the names of the President and 
Secretaries of the various Agricultural Societies in the 
State, as furnishing when published, great facilities for 
address, and an interchange of opinions. All such lists 
forwarded us will receive a place in our columns. It is 
to be hoped that the Committees appointed at the last 
meeting of the State Society to prepare reports on various 
subjects of interest to the farmer, will be prepared to 
make them at the next meeting. New-York can, if she 
will, have a State Society second to no Agricultural So¬ 
ciety in the world ; let the meeting of February demon¬ 
strate that she both can and will. 
FREFARATI©!*! ©F DACOSff. 
It is not uncommon to hear foreigners, and particular¬ 
ly Englishmen, complain of the undeviating use of 
pickled pork in this country, while bacon is so much 
neglected. There may be two causes for this,—one is 
in our habits of living, which renders the daily use of 
meat indispensable, and can be gratified in no other 
way so certainly ; and the other the difference in the 
temperature of this country and Great Britain, which 
renders the summer preservation of bacon more diffi¬ 
cult here than there. There can be no doubt, however, 
but that the more common use of bacon among our far¬ 
mers, would prove an essential addition to their com¬ 
fort, and give an agreeable variety to a principal arti¬ 
cle of their food. In this country, the idea of smoked 
meat is invariably associated with the word bacon, but 
such is not the case in England. It is there applied to 
all meat salted and dried, whether by smoking or other¬ 
wise ; and large establishments exist in which bacon is 
prepared by drying, with the aid of stoves without 
smoke. Among the farmers this operation of drying is 
performed by suspending the flitches from the beams 
over the kitchen ; or where smoking is to be added, 
hanging them in the chimney. During the process of 
smoking, oak wood is preferred, and when completed 
they are placed on the racks over the kitchen for use. 
In this country we have heard of but few instances in 
which the making of bacon without smoke has been at¬ 
tempted, and we shall condense from ihe British Hus¬ 
bandry and other sources the mode there adopted. 
The animal fasts twenty-four hours before it is kill¬ 
ed ; and in the operation of dressing all bruising is 
avoided. The scalding is usually performed by cloths 
laid on the animal, on which hot water is poured till the 
hair starts easily ; or where bacon for smoking is made, 
the hair is singed off by burning with straAV, and to this 
the superiority of Hampshire bacon is attributed. Af¬ 
ter dressing, the pig lays twenty-four hours to cool; the 
head is then cut off close to the ears ; the feet cut, leav¬ 
ing enough of the leg to prevent disfiguration ; the 
body split doAvn the middle, and laid on a table. The 
ham is then cut from the side by the second joint of the 
back bone. The spare-rib taken out, and the shoulders 
taken off at the first rib next the shoulder. Both hams 
and shoulders must be trimmed carefully, their corners 
rounded, and all lose fat taken off. Thus it will be 
seen, that the body of the hog is made into six pieces, 
three on a side, the ham, flitch, and shoulder, although 
in common parlance all these are termed “ flitches of 
bacon,” Avhen cured. 
As is the case in this country Avith the pickling of 
pork, the salting of the meat is there performed differ¬ 
ently in the seA^eral sections of the country. In 
Westmoreland, the flitches or hams, after trimming, are 
rubbed hard with bay salt, and left on a stone bench to 
drain off the brine. After four or five days this rub¬ 
bing is again performed, Avith an addition to the salt of 
about an ounce of finely powdered salt petre to each 
ham, afterAvards suffered to lie for a week and then 
hung up to smoke or dry. When the weather is Avarm 
they are AAvapped in paper and packed in oat chaff. 
In Berkshire the flitches are first rubbed Avith the com¬ 
mon salt and salt petre, and then laid in a trough Avhere 
they lie for three weeks or a month, according to their 
size, being frequently turned, and are then taken out to 
dry. In preparing the celebrated Witltshire bacon, 
"the flitches are laid in large Avooden troughs, and 
sprinkled over Avith bay salt, then left for tiventy-four 
hours to drain off the blood and superfluous juices. 
They are then taken out and wiped thoroughly dry, and 
some fresh bay salt previously heated in a frying pan is 
rubbed into the flesh until it has absorbed a considerable 
quantity.” This process is continued four or five suc¬ 
cessive days, and they are then kept in brine five Aveeks, 
when they are hung up to dry. In drying or smoking, 
the neck of the flitch should hang doAvnAvards, and the 
operation is usually performed in about a fortnight, al¬ 
though large hams Avill require a longer time. They 
must be kept at all times quite dry, and neither bacon 
or ham should ever be preserved in cellars or damp 
places. The side pieces lose little in drying, but about 
one-sixth is calculated for the loss in hams. 
Among the few in this country who have attempted 
the curing of bacon in the English mode, is Mr. Let- 
ton, of Tennessee, Avho in the " Agriculturist,” (page 
184,) has thus in substance described the mode of pre¬ 
paring it. The meat must lie in salt from 24 to 48 
hours, when the lose salt is brushed off and the meat 
hung on hooks from the joists to dry. When warm 
Aveather comes on, it is necessary to guard against the 
fly, and this is done by bags made of cheap cotton cloth, 
drawn over the bacon as if hangs, and the mouth of the 
bag tied close around the string by which the flitch is 
suspended. 
There can be no question that lying in salt too long is 
injurious, making the meat hard and inferior, but the 
time allowed by Mr. Letton would seem hardly ade¬ 
quate for the salt to impregnate a ham sufficiently to 
preserve it well. We think too Mr. Letton is in er¬ 
ror, in asserting, as he does, “ there is no such thing 
as smoking of bacon and beef in England.” Since in 
Sinclair’s Works, the County Reports, the Grazier’s 
Guide, British Husbandry, and indeed every English 
Avork of note in which the subject is referred to, ample 
directions are given for smoking, and it is universally 
spoken of as a common mode of curing meat. It is, 
hoAvever, more prevalent in some districts than others ; 
and we should like to have some of our farming friends 
who have the conveniencies, make the experiment of 
curing bacon by salting and drying rather than by 
smoking. It is to be presumed that the addition of su¬ 
gar to the salt, in the proportion of 1 lb. of sugar to 3 
of salt, and 2 ounces of salt petre would materially add 
to the quality of the bacon, as well as aid in preserving 
it when dried. 
Yellow bugs and Cucumbers. —“ A subscriber” 
says that a thin layer of toAv spread over cucumber and 
melon plants when they first appear, will save them 
from the striped yelloAV bug. Our remedy for the bug, 
and for the worm in the garden, is to put a coop Avith a 
hen and a good brood of chickens there, and these in¬ 
truders and most others of the insect depredators Avill 
soon become scarce. 
