=Chilling Hogs.=--During a summer season and where hogs may have been hung out for say two hours to air dry, the chill rooms should be reduced to a temperature of 30° F. at the time the hogs are put in and sufficient refrigeration applied in to prevent the maximum temperature exceeding 38° F. It should then be forced sufficiently to again reduce the temperature of the chill rooms to 32° F. within twelve hours after killing, maintained thus for twenty-four hours additional, then reduced to 28° F. and maintained at this temperature until hogs are cut out; forty-eight to seventy-two hours after slaughtering. [Illustration: FIG. 21.--VIEW IN HOG CHILLING ROOM OF A LARGE PACKING HOUSE IN CHICAGO.] The chilling of hogs is handled in a measure the same as cattle, except that the hog is a much more difficult animal to chill owing to the character of the animal. The chilling is of such vital importance that most successful meat curers have a set schedule for operation. It is better to segregate the day’s killing in sections of coolers sixteen to thirty-two feet wide; to insulate each cooler section from the adjacent one; to make a filling limit of 40° F. and to require sufficient refrigeration capacity and facility to reduce the chamber to 32° F. the morning after killing; and to maintain these temperatures until cutting, about forty-eight hours after killing. =Cellars.=--Dry salt cellars should be carried at a temperature of 38° F.; sweet pickle meat cellars at 35° F., and for almost any kind of curing. Cellars are occasionally reduced to 32° F. to suspend rapidity of cure. Dry packed meats carry safely for ninety days in 20° F., and for longer holding should be reduced to 12° F. =Freezing Meat.=--The freezing of pork, which has become so important during the last decade, seems to produce the best results when performed at low temperatures. Many firms maintain freezers at a temperature of from 15° to 10° below 0° F. Some insist upon storage of meats under conditions of 0° F. to 5° F. Unquestionably the prompt freezing of the product is a benefit, but the storage in these excessively low temperatures would seem questionable since there is a very marked “drying” tendency in low temperature rooms owing to the very low percentage of moisture the air will contain. It is the practice among some to coat the edges of piles of pork, or the individual pieces, with water after the style of dipping fish in fish-freezing. For all practical purposes, however, it would appear as well to store the meat in rooms at 7° to 13° F., with 10° as a standard. Canvas covering to prevent air circulation is a benefit. CHAPTER VIII WAREHOUSES.