sugar, a pint of molasses, and
eight ounces of salt-petre, are enough to boil in four gallons of
water. Skim it clean while boiling. Put it to the beef cold; have
enough to cover it; and be careful your beef never floats on the top.
If it does not smell perfectly sweet, throw in more salt; if a scum
rises upon it, scald and skim it again, and pour it on the beef when
cold.

Legs of mutton are very good, cured in the same way as ham. Six pounds
of salt, eight ounces of salt-petre, and five pints of molasses, will
make pickle enough for one hundred weight. Small legs should be kept
in pickle twelve or fifteen days; if large, four or five weeks are not
too much. They should be hung up a day or two to dry, before they are
smoked. Lay them in the oven, on crossed sticks, and make a fire at
the entrance. Cobs, walnut-bark, or walnut-chips, are the best to use
for smoking, on account of the sweet taste they give the meat. The
smallest pieces should be smoked forty-eight hours, and large legs
four or five days. Some people prefer the mutton boiled as soon as it
is taken from the pickle, before it is smoked; others hang it up till
it gets dry thoroughly, and eat it in thin slices, like hung beef.
When legs of meat are put in pickle, the thickest part of the leg
should be placed uppermost, that is, standing upright, the same as the
creature stood when living. The same rule should be observed when they
are hung up to dry; it is essential in order to keep in the juices of
the meat. Meat should be turned over once or twice during the process
of smoking.

The old-fashioned way for curing hams is to rub them with salt very
thoroughly, and let them lay twenty-four hours. To each ham allow
two ounces of salt-petre, one quart of common salt and one quart of
molasses. First baste them with molasses; next rub in the salt-petre;
and, last of all, the common salt. They must be carefully turned
and rubbed every day for six weeks; then hang them in a chimney, or
smoke-house, four weeks.

They should be well covered up in paper bags, and put in a chest, or
barrel, with layers of ashes, or charcoal, between. When you take out
a ham to cut for use, be sure and put it away in a dark place, well
covered up; especially in summer.

Some very experienced epicures and cooks, think the old-fashioned way
of preparing bacon is troublesome and useless. They say that legs of
pork placed upright in pickle, for four or five weeks, are just as
nice as t