years as it was when first begun. The sugar is considered to impart a finer and richer flavor than saltpetre, although the latter is most commonly used. There is no reason why both sugar and saltpetre may not be advantageously combined with the salt in pickling pork, as well as in salting beef, for in this latter process there can be no question that a pickle composed of three parts salt, one part saltpetre, and one sugar, is the very best that can be used, making the meat tender, juicy, well flavored, and fine colored.
CURING BACON.
Bacon is the next form in which we eat pig's flesh. There has been some dispute as to the derivation of this word; some authors have suggested that it may be a corruption of the Scotch baken, (dried,) while others suggest that it is derived from becchen, as the finest flitches were considered to be those furnished by animals that were fattened on the fruit of the beech-tree, and this opinion is borne out by the fact that in the old Lancashire dialect the word bacon is both spelt and pronounced beechen. A bacon hog will in general befit for killing at about a twelve-month old, when he will weigh some 200 or 240 lbs.; those persons who care most about the hams will find it answer their purpose best not to let the animals be too fat, or so fat as a bacon-hog, and after having taken off the hams to cut up the carcass for fresh or pickling pork.
There are various methods of curing bacon and hams, practised in the different counties of England, as well as in Scotland, America, and the Continent. We will proceed to describe a few of the best and most successful.
In Hampshire and Berkshire the practice is to choose a dry day, when the wind is blowing from the north, and kill the hog early in the morning (it having fasted the day before.) When dressed hang him up in some airy place for 24 hours, then proceed to cut him up. This being done, lay the flitches on the ground, and sprinkle them with salt lightly, so let them remain for six or eight hours; then turn them up edgeways, and let the brine run off. In the mean time take two or three gallons of best salt, and two ounces of saltpetre, pounded very fine, and well mixed together; and the salting bench being made of the best seasoned oak, proceed to salt the flitches by rubbing in the salt on the back side of the flitch. This being done, turn the inside upwards, and lay on the salt about a quarter of an inch in thickness: in like manner treat every flitch. On the third day afterwards change the flitches, viz., take off the uppermost and reverse them, at the same time lay on salt a quarter of an inch in thickness. There will be no need of rubbing as before-mentioned, neither should the saltpetre be repeated, otherwise the lean of the bacon will be hard. The changing and salting should be done every
