e.

They collared and potted many kinds of fish and game, and they salted
and soused. Salted meat was eaten, and very little fresh meat; for there
were no means of keeping meat after it was killed. Every well-to-do
family had a "powdering-tub," in which meat was "powdered," that is,
salted and pickled. Many families had a smoke-house, in which beef, ham,
and bacon were smoked.

Perhaps the busiest month of the year was November,--called "killing
time." When the chosen day arrived, oxen, cows, and swine which had been
fattened for the winter's stock were slaughtered early in the morning,
that the meat might be hard and cold before being put in the pickle.
Sausages, rolliches, and head-cheese were made, lard tried out, and
tallow saved.

A curious and quaint domestic implement or utensil found hanging on the
walls of some kitchens was what was known as a sausage-gun. One here is
shown with the piston detached, and also ready for use. The sausage-meat
was forced out through the nozzle into the sausage-cases. A simpler form
of sausage-stuffer has also been seen, much like a tube-and-piston
garden-syringe; though I must add a suspicion which has always lingered
in my mind that the latter utensil was really a syringe-gun, such as
once was used to disable humming-birds by squirting water upon them.

Sausage-meat was thus prepared in New York farmhouses. The meat was cut
coarsely into half-inch pieces and thrown into wooden boxes about three
feet long and ten inches deep. Then its first chopping was by men using
spades which had been ground to a sharp edge.

There were many families that found all their supply of sweetening in
maple sugar and honey; but housewives of dignity and elegance desired to
have some supply of sugar, certainly to offer visitors for their dish of
tea. This sugar was always loaf-sugar, and truly loaf-sugar; for it was
purchased ever in great loaves or cones which averaged in weight about
nine to ten pounds apiece. One cone would last thrifty folk for a year.
This pure clear sugar-cone always came wrapped in a deep blue-purple
paper, of such unusual and beautiful tint and so color-laden that in
country homes it was carefully saved and soaked, to supply a dye for a
small amount of the finest wool, which was used when spun and dyed for
some specially choice purpose. The cutting of this cone of sugar into
lumps of equal size and regular shape was distinctly the work of the
mistress and daughters of the h