n a large bulk of meat the brine,
as it settles down, lodges upon the lower pieces, and some of them get
rather more than their quota of salt. Too much saltiness spoils the hams
for first-class bacon. In fact, it spoils any meat to have it too salt,
but it requires less to spoil the hams, because, as a rule, they are
mostly lean meat. The jowls, heads and livers, on account of the quantity
of blood about them, are put in a separate pile, after being salted. The
chines and spareribs are but slightly salted and laid on top of the bulk
of neat meat. The drippings of brine and blood from the meat are collected
in buckets and sent to the compost heaps. If there are rats, they must be
trapped or kept out in some way. Cats, also, should be excluded from the
house. Close-fitting boxes, which some use to keep the rats from the meat,
are not the best; the meat needs air.

In ten days to three weeks, according to weather and size of the meat,
break bulk and resalt, using the old salt again, with just a little new
salt added. In four to six weeks more, or sooner, if need be, break up and
wash the meat nicely, preparatory to smoking it. Some farmers do not wash
the salt off, but the meat receives smoke better and looks nicer, if
washed.

CURING PORK FOR THE SOUTH.

This requires a little different treatment. It is dry-salted and smoked.
The sides, hams and shoulders are laid on a table and rubbed thoroughly
with salt and saltpeter (one ounce to five pounds of salt), clear
saltpeter being rubbed in around the ends of the bones. The pieces are
laid up, with salt between, and allowed to lie. The rubbing is repeated at
intervals of a week until the meat is thoroughly salted through, and it is
then smoked. It must afterward be left in the smokehouse, canvased or
buried in a box of ashes, to protect it from the flies.

CHAPTER XI.

SMOKING AND SMOKEHOUSES.

For best quality of bacon, the proper meat is of first importance. Withes
or strings of basket wood, bear's grass, or coarse, stout twine, one in
the hock end of each ham and shoulder, and two in the thick side of each
middling, are fastened in the meat by which to suspend it for smoking.
Before it is hung up the entire flesh surface of the hams and shoulders,
and sometimes the middlings also, is sprinkled thickly with fine black
pepper, using a large tin pepper box to apply it. Sometimes a mixture of
about equal parts of black and red pepper helps very much to impart a