The pickle for the large brine trough is made by mixing four gallons of water with a pound or a pound and a half of coarse sugar, four ounces of saltpetre, and six pounds of common or bay salt. This mixture should be boiled in a large kettle, and the scum taken off as it rises. When no more scum appears, the vessel should be taken from the fire, and the liquid suffered to stand till it is cold. Another pickle is made by adding to four gallons of water, fourteen pounds of common salt, eight pounds of bay salt, half a pound of saltpetre, and two ounces of sal prunella. Boil the whole together for half an hour, and take off the scum; when cold it is fit for use. The first kind is best for hung beef and tongues; and the latter for salt beef and pickled pork. When the pickle is ready, the meat to be salted should be examined, and carefully wiped dry with a coarse cloth, any flyblows or bruised parts being removed. If tongues are to be salted, the roots should be cut off, and laid aside for soups; and then the tongues should be scraped and rubbed dry before putting them into the pickling-trough. The skin of the pork should be scraped and cleaned, and the fleshy part should be carefully examined, and wiped dry, any mass that there may be of congealed blood being removed. All the meat that is to be cured being properly prepared, it should be laid in the pickling-trough and the brine poured over it; and, if there are several pieces of meat, care should be taken to lay them so that the brine may touch every part, and completely cover the whole. Meat which has been preserved in the first pickle for ten weeks or more, if cooked without being hung up to dry, will be perfectly tender, and will eat as well as meat that has been only freshly and slightly salted. It is said that meat may be kept in this pickle for twelve months, provided the pickle be boiled and skimmed about once in two months, and that during the boiling, two ounces of sugar, and half a pound of salt be added. In general, the articles which have been salted, after remaining about a fortnight or three weeks in the pickle, are taken out and hung up to dry. Some persons lay them to drain, and then hang them up without any other preparation; but others advise them to be wiped quite dry and put in paper bags before they are hung up. Whenever fresh articles are put into the pickle, every thing should be taken out of the trough, and the brine boiled up, the scum being taken off and fresh salt and sugar added, as before directed. Sometimes meat is merely salted when it is to be used in a few days; in which case the meat is put into a smaller trough or pan, and only salt is used in the proportion of a quarter of a pound of salt to every two pounds of meat. The salt should be well rubbed in, and the meat turned every day.