.

151. To keep the bacon sweet and good, and free from nasty things that
they call _hoppers_; that is to say, a sort of skipping maggots,
engendered by a fly which has a great relish for bacon: to provide against
this mischief, and also to keep the bacon from becoming rusty, the
Americans, whose country is so hot in summer, have two methods. They smoke
no part of the hog except the hams, or gammons. They cover these with
coarse linen cloth such as the finest hop-bags are made of, which they sew
neatly on. They then _white-wash_ the cloth all over with _lime_
white-wash, such as we put on walls, their lime being excellent
stone-lime. They give the ham four or five washings, the one succeeding as
the former gets dry; and in the sun, all these washings are put on in a
few hours. The flies cannot get through this; and thus the meat is
preserved from them. The _other_ mode, and that is the mode for you, is,
to sift _fine_ some clean and dry _wood-ashes_. Put some at the bottom of
a box, or chest, which is long enough to hold a flitch of bacon. Lay in
one flitch; then put in more ashes; then the _other flitch_; and then
cover this with six or eight inches of the ashes. This will effectually
keep away all flies; and will keep the bacon as fresh and good as when it
came out of the chimney, which it will not be for any great length of
time, if put on a rack, or kept hung up in the open air. _Dust_, or even
_sand_, very, very _dry_, would, perhaps, do as well. The object is not
only to keep out the flies, but the _air_. The place where the chest, or
box, is kept, ought to be _dry_; and, if the ashes should get damp (as
they are apt to do from the salts they contain,) they should be put in the
fire-place to dry, and then be put back again. Peat-ashes, or turf-ashes,
might do very well for this purpose. With these precautions, the bacon
will be as good at the end of the year as on the first day; and it will
keep two, and even three years, perfectly good, for which, however, there
can be no necessity.

152. Now, then, this hog is altogether a capital thing. The other parts
will be meat for about four or five weeks. The _lard_, nicely put down,
will last a long while for all the purposes for which it is wanted. To
make it keep well there should be some salt put into it. Country children
are badly brought up if they do not like sweet lard spread upon bread, as
we spread butter. Many a score hunches of this sort have I eaten, and I
n