155. Now, as to the cost. A pig (a spayed sow is best) bought in March four months old, can be had now for fifteen shillings. The cost till fatting time is next to nothing to a Cottager; and then the cost, at the present price of corn, would, for a hog of twelve score, not exceed three pounds; in the whole four pounds five; a pot of poison a week bought at the public-house comes to twenty-six shillings of the money; and more than three times the remainder is generally flung away upon the miserable tea, as I have clearly shown in the First Number, at Paragraph 24. I have, indeed, there shown, that if the tea were laid aside, the labourer might supply his family well with beer all the year round, and have a fat hog of even fifteen score for the cost of the tea, which does him and can do him no good at all.
156. The feet, the cheeks, and other bone, being considered, the bacon and lard, taken together, would not exceed sixpence a pound. Irish bacon is “cheaper.” Yes, lower-priced. But, I will engage that a pound of mine, when it comes out of the pot (to say nothing of the taste,) shall weigh as much as a pound and a half of Irish, or any dairy or slop-fed bacon, when that comes out of the pot. No, no: the farmers joke when they say, that their bacon costs them more than they could buy bacon for. They know well what it is they are doing; and besides, they always forget, or, rather, remember not to say, that the fatting of a large hog yields them three or four load of dung, really worth more than ten or fifteen of common yard dung. In short, without hogs, farming could not go on; and it never has gone on in any country in the world. The hogs are the great stay of the whole concern. They are much in small space; they make no show, as flocks and herds do; but with out them, the cultivation of the land would be a poor, a miserably barren concern.
SALTING MUTTON AND BEEF.
157. VERY FAT Mutton may be salted to great advantage, and also smoked, and may be kept thus a long while. Not the shoulders and legs, but the back of the sheep. I have never made any flitch of sheep-bacon; but I will; for there is nothing like having a store of meat in a house. The running to the butchers daily is a ridiculous thing. The very idea of being fed, of a family being fed, by daily supplies, has something in it perfectly tormenting. One half of the time of a mistress of a house, the affairs of which are carried on in this way, is taken up in talking about what is to be got for dinner, and in negotiations with the butcher. One single moment spent at table beyond what is absolutely necessary, is a moment very shamefully spent; but, to suffer a system of domestic economy, which unnecessarily wastes daily an hour or two of the mistress’s time in hunting for the provision for the repast, is a shame indeed; and when we consider how much time is generally spent in this and in equally absurd ways, it is no wonder that we see so little performed by numerous individuals as they do perform during the course of their lives.
158. Very fat parts of Beef may be salted and smoked in a like manner. Not the lean; for that is a great waste, and is, in short, good for nothing. Poor fellows on board of ships are compelled to eat it, but it is a very bad thing.
No. VII.
BEES, FOWLS, &c. &c.
159. I now proceed to treat of objects of less importance than the foregoing, but still such as may be worthy of great attention. If all of them cannot be expected to come within the scope of a labourer’s family, some of them must, and others may: and it is always of great consequence, that children be brought up to set a just value upon all useful things, and especially upon all living things; to know the utility of them: for, without this, they never, when grown up, are worthy of being entrusted with the care of them. One of the greatest, and, perhaps, the very commonest, fault of servants, is their inadequate care of animals committed to their charge. It is a well-known saying that “the master’s eye makes the horse fat,” and the remissness to which this alludes, is generally owing to the servant not having been brought up to feel an interest in the well-being of animals.