=Ham Facing and Cutting.=--In ham facing care should be used to see that the workmen cut off the fat down to the lean meat, and at the same time do not cut the striffen. In opening the hog it is requisite that the opening cut should be a straight line from the stickers cut to the bung. The breast splitting and opening over breast bone is made so as to equally divide the sides and avoid trimming when cutting hogs; the intestines are removed without cutting or breaking. FIG. 104.--HOG SCALDING. =Leaf Lard.=--Pulling the leaf lard just before the splitting, should be done with care in order that the leaves may be pulled clean. If this operation is performed in an indifferent manner, a considerable amount of the leaf lard will be left in the carcasses and it is afterward scraped out. Lard left after pulling the leaf, should be scraped out, as it is often worth more as lard than if left as meat. Its presence greatly disfigures the meat. =Splitting.=--This should be done carefully and accurately through the backbone. A wide blade chopper is by all means preferable. =Washing.=--The hog when once cleaned, and after eviscerating and before splitting or pulling the leaf lard, should not be washed further unless it be on the neck, since water on split backs is detrimental to the keeping quality of pork loins. =Drying.=--Few appreciate the value and importance of “skin drying” hogs by dry-shaving and dry-scraping the surface. The advantage to refrigerating more than overcomes the initial cost of the labor necessary. [Illustration: FIG. 105.--HOG SCRAPING GANG AT WORK.] =Care in Chill Room.=--It is in this particular part of the house that the most careful and minute attention to details is necessary in order to turn out meats in the best marketable condition, as only a few degree deviation in temperatures from carefully set rules in the handling of chill rooms, shows excess per cent of sour meat found thirty to sixty days afterward, when the meats are brought from the curing cellar. This, therefore, is a department that should receive the most careful attention. A wrong start here can never be righted afterward. The rule for operation is previously given under another chapter. (See Chapter on Coolers). [Illustration: FIG. 106.--CLEANING HOG CARCASSES.]