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BACON OR HAM, TO CURE (Wiltshire way)

The excellence of bacon depends to a great degree upon the care with which the meat is drained from blood and slime before it is salted. The amount of salt used is not so important if this be well attended to, as will be seen by the Wiltshire mode. The quantity of salt for a whole pig is one pound and a half of bay salt, and one pound of common salt to six ounces of saltpetre, and one pound and a half of the coarsest brown sugar or treacle. Strew common salt over the bacon, and let it drain a day and night. Powder the bay salt and saltpetre, and mix them thoroughly with the other salt and sugar. When well blended, rub each piece of bacon and lay them together in a trough. Turn every alternate day for a month. Smoke nine days. Sufficient for the flitches of one pig of ten or twelve stones.