I Juxx, 1900.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 463 
Dairying. 
PIGS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT.—No. 7. 
CUTTING UP A PIG. 
Tuts, to make the best uses of the meat, must be done skilfully. First, the 
carcass is halved by splitting the backbone. If bacon is to be made, the side is 
sawn down so as to cut through the rib bones, leaving a long strip from each 
side, which may afterward be cutinto pieces as seems desirable. The shoulders 
and hams are cut out and trimmed, and the rib pieces are reserved for roasts or 
to be salted for boiling. The head and feet are well worth saving, being cleaned 
and boiled and chopped into small pieces, then once more brought to a boiling 
heat and then poured out intomoulds to set into a solid jelly, when it becomes what 
is commonly known as brawn, one of the most agreeable kinds of food to be 
eaten cold. If the chickens are cut up and cooked with the meat it is much 
Improved. 
The thin meat, shoulders, and hams are improved by smoking. The meat 
keeps better during the summer, and a moderate smoking with corn cobs or 
hickory-bark with the small twigs adds much to the flavour of it. For smoking, 
the salting should be light, and is best done by the simple rubbing of the 
meat. ‘The meat, being cut into convenient pieces, is laid upon a bench with 
the skin down, and a mixture of 7 lb. of fine salt, 4 oz. of saltpetre, and 2 Ib. 
of sugar, of the quality known as coffee sugar, is well mixed. Sometimes 
Spice of various kinds is added, and, on the whole, is desirable. To the quantity 
of salt and sugar mentioned 1 oz. each of ground ginger, allspice, and cinnamon 
may be added. ‘These quantities are for 100 lb. of meat. The mixture is 
rubbed on the meat on the flesh side, not all at once, but at intervals of a week, 
the meat being left to drain during the intervals. To prevent drying of the 
meat the pieces are piled one upon the other; a weighted piece of board is laid 
on the top. Three weeks of this curing is sufficient, when the meat is hung in 
a smokehouse for final curing by the smoke. 
The most important part of this process is the coolness of the smoke and 
the absence of the fire heat on the meat. The smokehouse should be tight ; 
and to keep out flies it should be lined with fine wire gauze. The fire is best 
made outside the house in a pit, having a stovepipe laid so as to carry the smoke 
into the house through the floor. The smoke is thus cooled, and gives a much 
More pleasant flavour to the meat. Half-an-hour’s smoking twice a day for 
four weeks will be sufficient, and this is better than to smoke the meat every 
day. If the smokehouse is made impregnable to the meat flies and beetles, it 
will be the best place for keeping the meat until the warm weather is about to 
arrive in the spring. ‘Then the meat should be wrapped in paper, or tied in the 
Common paper bags and hung in adry place, or if perfectly dry it may be 
packed in boxes or barrels in dry bran. If it is stored in a cool, dry place, it 
Will keep in excellent condition without moulding until the next season. 
CURING BACON. 
A FEW HINTS ON CURING FOR HOME CONSUMPTION, 
Another method which can be used in the case of large pigs is as follows :— 
aving split the carcass as before, take off the ham, and then the leaf-lard, 
leaving the kidney on the pork. Now saw the ribs down the centre length- 
_ Ways, and take out the flat ribs in one piece; you can now either take out the 
‘ength pork in one length—-namely, neck, loin, and griskin—or cut off the 
_ Shoulder with the neck part on it, and what is known to the trade as a middle 
is then left. ‘fhe above-mentioned methods of cutting up will probably be 
Sufficient for our purpose. 
