When hides are put in the pack, extreme care should be used to see that every part of the hide is exposed to salt. The legs should be straightened out flat and the pates thoroughly spread, so that the salt may reach every part. Hides should lie in pack and salt for from twenty-five to thirty days before they are fully cured. At the expiration of this time they are ready for shipment, and are taken out of salt, inspected and each one rolled into a bundle and tied.
Switches.
—The switches should be spread out on the floor and given a thorough chance to cool off, when they are thrown into a pack by themselves and heavily salted. They should be watched closely, as there is unavoidably considerable blood and moisture in them, and if any sign of heating is found they should be overhauled and resalted.
Shrinkage of Hides.
—No set rule can be made as to how much hides will actually shrink, but if the foregoing directions are followed closely and intelligently the shrinkage may be kept at the minimum, which will usually range from 12 to 15 per cent. This is governed largely, as before stated, by the amount of water which the hides take up on the killing floor, which if weighed with the hide will nearly all seep out when put into the packs and cause an excess shrinkage from the original green weights. Further the storage has a great deal to do with it, but if proper care is taken the shrinkage should be kept within the figures given.
Sheep Pelts.
—The handling of sheep pelts, especially in hot weather, requires careful attention. The pelts, as soon as taken off, should be spread out in a room where it is as cold as possible without being refrigerated, and allowed to cool off for at least twelve hours before salting. This is especially necessary when the animal slaughtered has a very heavy fleece; with shearlings there is little or no necessity for taking this precaution. Fleece skins, however, hold the heat, so that when put into a pack and salted, if not properly cooled, they soon begin to warm and decompose, and as soon as the wool slips, the leather of the skin is ruined.
After the pelts have been spread out and allowed to thoroughly chill, as suggested, they should be salted in piles not to exceed thirty inches high by putting one skin on top of another, flesh side up, and using a fine solar salt, care being taken that they are thoroughly salted around the heads and leggings. After they have been in salt for a week, it is well, especially in warm weather, to overhaul them, shifting the packs so that when through, the top pelts are on the bottom and vice versa. After they have lain in salt for two weeks they are ready for shipment.
CHAPTER XII
OLEO OIL AND STEARINE.
Fats — Origin of Butterine — Oleo Oil — Oleo Fats — Selection and Care — Cleanliness and Collection — Chilling Fat — Cooling Water — Melting — Settling the Oil — Clarifiers — Scrap Vat — Seeding or Graining Oil — Press Room — Collecting Oil — Oil Receivers — Temperature of Oil Drawn to Tierce — Stearine — Oil House Yields — Grading Fats — Tests on Oil Fats — Butcher Fats — Mutton Fat — Oil Selection — Oil House Operation.