If you wish to salt fat pork, scald coarse salt in water and skim it, till the salt will no longer melt in the water.  Pack your pork down in tight layers; salt every layer; when the brine is cool, cover the pork with it, and keep a heavy stone on the top to keep the pork under brine.  Look to it once in a while, for the first few weeks, and if the salt has all melted, throw in more.  This brine, scalded and skimmed every time it is used, will continue good twenty years.  The rind of the pork should be packed towards the edge of the barrel.

It is good economy to salt your own beef as well as pork.  Six pounds of coarse salt, eight ounces of brown sugar, a pint of molasses, and eight ounces of salt-petre, are enough to boil in four gallons of water.  Skim it clean while boiling.  Put it to the beef cold; have enough to cover it; and be careful your beef never floats on the top.  If it does not smell perfectly sweet, throw in more salt; if a scum rises upon it, scald and skim it again, and pour it on the beef when cold.

Legs of mutton are very good, cured in the same way as ham.  Six pounds of salt, eight ounces of salt-petre, and five pints of molasses, will make pickle enough for one hundred weight.  Small legs should be kept in pickle twelve or fifteen days; if large, four or five weeks are not too much.  They should be hung up a day or two to dry, before they are smoked.  Lay them in the oven, on crossed sticks, and make a fire at the entrance.  Cobs, walnut-bark, or walnut-chips, are the best to use for smoking, on account of the sweet taste they give the meat.  The smallest pieces should be smoked forty-eight hours, and large legs four or five days.  Some people prefer the mutton boiled as soon as it is taken from the pickle, before it is smoked; others hang it up till it gets dry thoroughly, and eat it in thin slices, like hung beef.  When legs of meat are put in pickle, the thickest part of the leg should be placed uppermost, that is, standing upright, the same as the creature stood when living.  The same rule should be observed when they are hung up to dry; it is essential in order to keep in the juices of the meat.  Meat should be turned over once or twice during the process of smoking.

The old-fashioned way for curing hams is to rub them with salt very thoroughly, and let them lay twenty-four hours.  To each ham allow two ounces of salt-petre, one quart of common salt and one quart of molasses.  First baste them with molasses; next rub in the salt-petre; and, last of all, the common salt.  They must be carefully turned and rubbed every day for six weeks; then hang them in a chimney, or smoke-house, four weeks.

They should be well covered up in paper bags, and put in a chest, or barrel, with layers of ashes, or charcoal, between.  When you take out a ham to cut for use, be sure and put it away in a dark place, well covered up; especially in summer.