150. However, the patient that I have at this time under my hands wants nothing to cool his blood, but something to warm it, and, therefore, I will get back to the flitches of bacon, which are now to be _smoked_; for smoking is a great deal better than merely _drying_, as is the fashion in the dairy countries in the West of England. When there were plenty of _farm_-houses there were plenty of places to smoke bacon in; since farmers have lived in gentleman's houses, and the main part of the farm-houses have been knocked down, these places are not so plenty. However, there is scarcely any neighbourhood without a chimney left to hang bacon up in. Two precautions are necessary: first, to hang the flitches where no _rain_ comes down upon them: second, not to let them be so near the fire as to _melt_. These precautions taken, the next is, that the smoke must proceed from _wood_, not turf, peat, or coal. Stubble or litter might do; but the trouble would be great. _Fir_, or _deal_, smoke is not fit for the purpose. I take it, that the absence of wood, as fuel, in the dairy countries, and in the North, has led to the making of pork and dried bacon. As to the _time_ that it requires to smoke a flitch, it must depend a good deal upon whether there be a _constant fire beneath_, and whether the fire be large or small. A month may do, if the fire be pretty constant, and such as a farm-house fire usually is. But over smoking, or, rather, too long hanging in the air, makes the bacon _rust_. Great attention should, therefore, be paid to this matter. The flitch ought not be dried up to the hardness of a board, and yet it ought to be perfectly dry. Before you hang it up, lay it on the floor, scatter the flesh-side pretty thickly over with bran, or with some fine saw-dust other than that of deal or fir. Rub it on the flesh, or pat it well down upon it. This keeps the smoke from getting into the little openings, and makes a sort of crust to be dried on; and, in short, keeps the flesh cleaner than it would otherwise be.
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.