use of certain kinds of fuel in smoking which are not
adapted to burning in a bake oven.

[Illustration: FIG. 18. COMBINATION SMOKEHOUSE AND OVEN.]

Cloudy and damp days are the best for smoking meat. It seems to receive
the smoke more freely in such weather, and there is also less danger of
fire. The smoke need not be kept up constantly, unless one is in a hurry
to sell the meat. Half a day at a time on several days a week, for two or
three weeks, will give the bacon that bright gingerbread color which is
generally preferred. It should not be made too dark with smoke. It is a
good plan, after the meat is smoked nearly enough, to smoke it
occasionally for half a day at a time all through the spring until late in
May. It is thought that smoke does good in keeping the Dermestes out of
the house. The work of smoking may be finished up in a week, if one
prefers, by keeping up the smoke all day and at night until bedtime. Some
smoke more, others less, according to fancy as to color. No doubt, the
more it is smoked, the better the bacon will keep through the summer. But
it need not, and, in fact, should not, be made black with smoke.

It is necessary, before the smoking is quite completed, to remove the meat
that is in the center just over the fire to one side, and to put the
pieces from the sides in the center. The meat directly over the smoke
colors faster than that on the sides, although the house is kept full of
smoke constantly. Some farmers do not care to risk the safety of their
meat by having an open fire under it, and so set up an old stove, either
in the room or on the outside, in which latter case a pipe lets the smoke
into the house. A smoldering fire is then kept up with corn cobs or chips.
But there is almost as much danger this way as the other. The stovepipe
may become so hot as to set fire to the walls of the house where it
enters, or a blaze may be carried within if there is too much fire in the
stove. There is some risk either way, but with a properly built
smokehouse, there is no great danger from the plan described.

THE MEAT IS NOW CURED

and, if these directions have been observed, the farmer has a supply of
bacon as good as the world can show. Some may prefer a "shorter cut" from
the slaughter pen to the baking pan, and with their pyroligenous acid may
scout the old-fashioned smoke as heathenish, and get their bacon ready for
eating in two hours after the salt has struck in. But they never can sho