Scrapple usually means the head and feet of hogs but it can be made from any hog meat.  It is a good food as it uses cornmeal.  It makes a change from fried mush and most men working on a farm relish it.

Sausage can be made from mutton mixed with pork in much the same way as beef is used for similar purposes.  A general formula would be 2 parts of mutton to 3 parts pork with seasonings.

With a plentiful supply of good home-cured and home-smoked meats, together with several varieties of sausages, you can feel you are well equipped to feed your family with its share of meat.  Everything will have been utilized, nothing will have been wasted.  You produced your own meat, you slaughtered and cured and smoked it and put all trimmings and other “left-overs” into appetizing food for your family and you have saved money.  You have utilized things at hand and required no transportation facilities.  And best of all, you have the very finest in the land for your family and that gives one a perfectly justifiable pride in the work accomplished.

CHAPTER XVII

PRESERVED OR “CANNED” EGGS

As one-half of the yearly egg crop is produced in March, April, May and June consumers would do well to store enough at that time to use when production is light.  Fifty dozen eggs should be stored for a family of five to use during the months of October, November, December and January, at which time the market price of eggs is at the highest.

When canning them the eggs must be fresh, preferably not more than two or three days old.  This is the reason why it is much more satisfactory to put away eggs produced in one’s own chicken yard or one’s neighbor’s.

Infertile eggs are best if they can be obtained—­so, after the hatching exclude the roosters from the flock and kill them for table use as needed.

The shells must be clean. Washing an egg with a soiled shell lessens its keeping quality.  The protective gelatinous covering over the shell is removed by water and when this is gone the egg spoils more rapidly.  Use the soiled eggs for immediate use and the clean ones for storage.

The shells also must be free from even the tiniest crack. One cracked egg will spoil a large number of sound eggs when packed in water glass.

Earthenware crocks are good containers. The crocks must be clean and sound. Scald them and let them cool completely before use.  A crock holding six gallons will accommodate eighteen dozen eggs and about twenty-two pints of solution.  Too large crocks are not desirable, since they increase the liability of breaking some of the eggs, and spoiling the entire batch.

It must be remembered that the eggs on the bottom crack first and that those in the bottom of the crock are the last to be removed for use.  Eggs can be put up in smaller crocks and the eggs put in the crock first should be used first in the household.