Relative qualities. The different sorts of mutton in common use differ as well in quality as in quantity. The flesh of the Leicester is large, though not coarse-grained, of a lively red color, and the cellular tissue between the fibres contains a considerable quantity of fat. When cooked, it is tender and juicy, yielding a red gravy, and having a sweet, rich taste; but the fat is rather too much and too rich for some people’s tastes, and can be put aside. It must be allowed that the lean of fat meat is far better than lean meat that has never been fat. Cheviot mutton is smaller in the grain, not so bright of color, with less fat, less juice, not so tender and sweet; but the flavor is higher, and the fat not so luscious. The mutton of South-Downs is of medium fineness in grain, color pleasant red, fat well intermixed with the meat, juicy, and tenderer than Cheviot. The mutton of rams of any breed is always hard, of disagreeable flavor, and, in autumn, not eatable; that of old ewes is dry, hard, and tasteless; of young ones, well enough flavored, but still rather dry; while wether-mutton is the meat in perfection, according to its kind.
The want of relish, perhaps the distaste, for mutton has served as an obstacle to the extension of sheep husbandry in the United States. The common mistake in the management of mutton among us is, that it is eaten, as a general thing, at exactly the wrong time after it is killed. It should be eaten immediately after being killed, and, if possible, before the meat has time to get cold; or, if not, then it should be kept a week or more—in the ice-house, if the weather require—until the time is just at hand when the fibre passes the state of toughness which it takes on at first, and reaches that incipient or preliminary point in its process toward putrefaction when the fibres begin to give way, and the meat becomes tender.
An opinion likewise generally prevails that mutton does not attain perfection in juiciness and flavor much under five years. If this be so, that breed of sheep must be very unprofitable which takes five years to attain its full state; and there is no breed of sheep in this country which requires five years to bring it to perfection. This being the case, it must be folly to restrain sheep from coming to perfection until they have reached that age. Lovers of five-year-old mutton do not pretend that this course bestows profit on the farmer, but only insist on its being best at that age. Were this the fact, one of two absurd conditions must exist in this department of agriculture: namely, the keeping a breed of sheep that cannot, or that should not be allowed to, attain to perfection before it is five years old; either of which conditions makes it obvious that mutton cannot be in its best state at five years.
The truth is, the idea of mutton of this age being especially excellent, is founded on a prejudice, arising, probably, from this circumstance: before winter food was discovered, which could maintain the condition of stock which had been acquired in summer, sheep lost much of their summer condition in winter, and, of course, an oscillation of condition occurred, year after year, until they attained the age of five years; when their teeth beginning to fail, would cause them to lose their condition the more rapidly. Hence, it was expedient to slaughter them at not exceeding five years of age; and, no doubt, mutton would be high-flavored at that age, that had been exclusively fed on natural pasture and natural hay. Such treatment of sheep cannot, however, be justified on the principles of modern practice; because both reason and taste concur in mutton being at its best whenever sheep attain their perfect state of growth and condition, not their largest and heaviest; and as one breed attains its perfect state at an earlier age than another, its mutton attains its best before another breed attains what is its best state, although its sheep may be older; but taste alone prefers one kind of mutton to another, even when both are in their best state, from some peculiar property. The cry for five-year-old mutton is thus based on very untenable grounds; the truth being that well-fed and fatted mutton is never better than when it gets its full growth in its second year; and the farmer cannot afford to keep it longer, unless the wool would pay for the keep, since we have not the epicures and men of wealth who would pay the butcher the extra price, which he must have, to enable him to pay a remunerating price to the grazier for keeping his sheep two or three years over.
All writers on diet agree in describing mutton as the most valuable of the articles of human food. Pork may be more stimulating, beef perhaps more nutritious, when the digestive powers are strong; but, while there is in mutton sufficient nutriment, there is also that degree of consistency and readiness of assimilation which renders it most congenial to the human stomach, most easy of digestion, and most promotive of human health. Of it, almost alone, can it be said that it is our food in sickness, as well as in health; its broth is the first thing, generally, that an invalid is permitted to taste, the first thing that he relishes, and is a natural preparation for his return to his natural aliment. In the same circumstances, it appears that fresh mutton, broiled or boiled, requires three hours for digestion; fresh mutton, roasted, three and one-fourth hours; and mutton-suet, boiled, four and one-half hours.
Good ham may be made of any part of a carcass of mutton, though the leg is preferable; and for this purpose it is cut in the English fashion. It should be rubbed all over with good salt, and a little saltpetre, for ten minutes, and then laid in a dish and covered with a cloth for eight or ten days. After that, it should be slightly rubbed again, for about five minutes, and then hung up in a dry place, say the roof of the kitchen, until used. Wether mutton is used for hams, because it is fat, and it may be cured any time from November to May; but ram-mutton makes the largest and highest-flavored ham, provided it be cured in spring, because it is out of season in autumn.
There is an infallible rule for ascertaining the age of mutton by certain marks on the carcass. Observe the color of the breast-bone, when a sheep is dressed—that is, where the breast-bone is separated—which, in a lamb, or before it is one year old, will be quite red; from one to two years old, the upper and lower bone will be changing to white, and a small circle of white will appear round the edges of the other bones, and the middle part of the breast-bone will yet continue red; at three years old, a very small streak of red will be seen in the middle of the four middle bones, and the others will be white; and at four years, all the breast-bone will be of a white or gristly color.
Contributions to manufactures. The products of sheep are not merely useful to man; they provide his luxuries as well. The skin of sheep is made into leather, and, when so manufactured with the fleece on, makes comfortable mats for the doors of rooms, and rugs for carriages. For this purpose, the best skins are selected, and such as are covered with the longest and most beautiful fleece. Tanned sheep-skin is used in coarse book-binding. White sheep-skin, which is not tanned, but so manufactured by a peculiar process, is used as aprons by many classes of workmen, and, in agriculture, as gloves in the harvest; and, when cut into strips, as twine for sewing together the leather coverings and stuffings of horse-collars. Morocco leather is made of sheep-skins, as well as of goat-skins, and the bright red color is given to it by cochineal. Russia leather is also made of sheep-skins, the peculiar odor of which repels insects from its vicinity, and resists the mould arising from damp, the odor being imparted to it in currying, by the empyreumatic oil of the bark of the birch-tree. Besides soft leather, sheep-skins are made into a fine, flexible, thin substance, known by the name of parchment; and, though the skins of all animals might be converted into writing materials, only those of the sheep and the she-goat are used for parchment. The finer quality of the substance, called vellum, is made of the skins of kids and dead-born lambs; and for its manufacture the town of Strasburgh has long been celebrated.
Mutton-suet is used in the manufacture of common candles, with a proportion of ox-tallow. Minced suet, subjected to the action of high-pressure steam in a digester, at two hundred and fifty or two hundred and sixty degrees of Fahrenheit, becomes so hard as to be sonorous when struck, whiter, and capable, when made into candles, of giving very superior light. Stearic candles, the invention of the celebrated Guy Lussac, are manufactured solely from mutton-suet.
Besides the fat, the intestines of sheep are manufactured into various articles of luxury and utility, which pass under the absurd name of catgut. All the intestines of sheep are composed of four layers, as in the horse and cattle. The outer, or peritoneal one, is formed of that membrane, by which every portion of the belly and its contents is invested, and confined in its natural and proper situation. It is highly smooth and polished, and secretes a watery fluid which contributes to preserve that smoothness, and to prevent all friction and concussion during the different motions of the animal. The second is the muscular coat, by means of which the contents of the intestines are gradually propelled from the stomach to the rectum, thence to be expelled when all the useful nutriment is extracted. The muscles, as in all the other intestines, are disposed in two layers, the fibres of the outer coat taking a longitudinal direction, and the inner layer being circular—an arrangement different from that of the muscles of the œsophagus, and in both beautifully adapted to the respective functions of the tube. The submucous coat comes next. It is composed of numerous glands, surrounded by cellular tissue, and by which the inner coat is lubricated, so that there may be no obstruction to the passage of the food. The mucous coat is the soft villous one lining the intestinal cavity. In its healthy state, it is always covered with mucus; and when the glands beneath are stimulated, as under the action of physic, the quantity of mucus is increased; it becomes of a more watery character; the contents of the intestines are softened and dissolved by it; and by means of the increased action of the muscular coat, which, as well as the mucous one, feels the stimulus of the physic, the fæces are hurried on more rapidly and discharged.