=Fancy Bacon.=--This particular part of the animal is cured either in dry salt or sweet pickle, according to the requirements of the trade and the grade or quality of the meat. The highest class bacon used in this country is generally “dry salt,” being specially handled and prepared to make the most attractive appearance. A much sought for point in bacon is to so prepare it that when fried it is of a light color. The only way to obtain this color is to use less sugar in curing, as it causes discoloration in cooking; but at the same time it greatly adds to the flavor, hence curing by the dry salt method adds to the looks. When it is cured in this way it should be dry packed in air-tight boxes lined with galvanized iron, or other material, the meat being put down with a fine salt combination, thoroughly mixed per 100 pounds of meat as follows: 2.75 pounds English salt. 1.25 pounds sugar. 3 ounces saltpetre. The meat should be held in this cure about twenty days. The meats are packed with the rind down uniformly, the salt being spread between the layers, the top layer being put on with the rind up and the box closed, keeping the air from it as much as possible; meat must not be overhauled. It should be fully cured in twenty-five days. Meat handled in this manner, as stated before, when fried cooks white; it also has a very bright appearance when smoked. This is a delicate cure and must be handled accordingly. =Shipping Ages.=--The table on next page gives what is considered the age, in days, at which different kinds and weights of sweet pickled hams and sides are cured sufficiently to smoke; also at which different kinds of barrel pork are cured sufficiently to be sold; also the cuts which should and should not be pumped. =Second Pickle.=--A wasteful practice in packing houses, is to throw away pickle as soon as the meat is cured. A pickle which will show 78-degree strength, to which has been added five to seven degrees of sugar, saltpetre, etc., making it 83 to 85-degree when used, if tested after meats have been cured, will show a strength of from 52 to 58-degrees, the meat having absorbed the balance of the curative ingredients. The remaining ingredients in this pickle are good when purified--salt and sugar being the same under all conditions--hence when meats are fully cured the pickle should be pumped into a vat, in the bottom and sides of which are galvanized iron coils. Steam should then be turned on these coils heating the pickle by the radiation from the pipe. SHIPPING AGES.--TIME REQUIRED FOR CURING.