HOW TO CLEANSE FEATHER BEDS.—­When feather beds become soiled and heavy they may be made clean and light by being treated in the following manner:  Rub them over with a stiff brush, dipped in hot soap-suds.  When clean lay them on a shed, or any other clean place where the rain will fall on them.  When thoroughly soaked let them dry in a hot sun for six or seven successive days, shaking them up well and turning them over each day.  They should be covered over with a thick cloth during the night; if exposed to the night air they will become damp and mildew.  This way of washing the bed-ticking and feathers makes them very fresh and light, and is much easier than the old-fashioned way of emptying the beds and washing the feathers separately, while it answers quite as well.  Care must be taken to dry the bed perfectly before sleeping on it.  Hair mattresses that have become hard and dirty can be made nearly as good as new by ripping them, washing the ticking, and picking the hair free from bunches and keeping it in a dry, airy place several days.  Whenever the ticking gets dry fill it lightly with the hair, and tack it together.  HOW TO CUT UP AND CURE PORK.—­Have the hog laid on his back on a stout, clean bench; cut off the head close to the base.  If the hog is large, there will come off a considerable collar, between head and shoulders, which, pickled or dried, is useful for cooking with vegetables.  Separate the jowl from the face at the natural joint; open the skull lengthwise and take out the brains, esteemed a luxury.  Then with a sharp knife remove the back-bone the whole length, then the long strip of fat underlying it, leaving about one inch of fat covering the spinal column.

The leaf lard, if not before taken out for the housewife’s convenience, is removed, as is also the tenderloin—­a fishy-shaped piece of flesh—­often used for sausage, but which makes delicious steak.  The middling or sides are now cut out, leaving the shoulders square-shaped and the hams pointed, or they may be rounded to your taste.  The spare-ribs are usually wholly removed from the sides, with but little meat adhering.  It is the sides of small, young hogs cured as hams that bear the name of breakfast bacon, The sausage meat comes chiefly in strips from the backbone, part of which may also be used as steak.  The lean trimmings from about the joints are used for sausage, the fat scraps rendered up with the backbone lard.

The thick part of the backbone that lies between the shoulders, called griskin or chine, is separated from the tapering, bony part, called backbone by way of distinction, and used as flesh.  The chines are smoked with jowls, and used in late winter or spring.

When your meat is to be pickled it should be dusted lightly with saltpetre sprinkled with salt, and allowed to drain twenty-four hours; then plunge it into pickle, and keep under with a weight.  It is good policy to pickle a portion of the sides.  They, after soaking, are sweeter to cook with vegetables, and the grease fried from them is much more useful than that of smoked meat.