HAM AND BACON CURING.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XIV, Issue 627, 5 November 1868, Page 3

HAM AND BACON CURING.

(Otago Witness.) A leading settler on the banks of tha :C!utha having observed sundry remarks recently on the supiaeness of our agriculturists in permitting the market here to be supplied with hams and bacon from Belfast and Glasgow, resolved to make the experiment of curing a quantity at his own place, and sending it into town for sale. His pigs were of the best breed, Berkshire, the stock having originally come from Prince Albert’s model farm at Windsor, He killed nineteen well-grown pigs, which had been fed on wheat, potatoes, and milk, and were consequently in prime condition. The quantity of pork was about a ton and a-half. Great care was exercised in the curing, sugar and spice being used in addition to the salt, and the fitches and hams u ere turned every day. They were finally completed by being regularly smoked in a house adapted for the purpose, in which saw-dust fires were used according to the best modes re» commended. The produce has been sent to Dunedin, and to his surprise be cannot get a price that will pay. While Irish hams, the produce of the cottagers’ piggeries, not at all to be compared to the Clutha bacon for excellence of quality, sells readily at Is 4d per lb, the latter is unsaleable in the shops at Is Id. He has been assured by the merchants that it is useless for jthe producer here to give any extra attention in turning out a prime article; I that common pork, put into the salting !tub, and left to cure itself, will bring |as good a price as the well fed and properly-cured bacon, and will find a readier sale. In consequence, the experiment will not be repeated, and we are informed that the whole of the first-class parcel referred ito has been bought by a wholesale i house—hams at lOd aud bacon at 8d | —to be sent to the Chinese diggers, 'who can, it seems, appreciate a good jarticle, and pay a discrimiating price. Ihe dilliculty of selling, any the advice given, are rather discouraging; bar ve is little doubt that with oats mud whe.it at present prices, it will pay the growers better to turn their .produce iuto'good pork than to cart their grain to market aud accept the rates ruling. Our settlers should aim 'at produceing a good article, and little by Rule they would edge the English ; and Irish hams cut of the market. : Indeed, there is no reason why they ;should not compete with Sinclair and other home linns in the Indian and I Eastern markets. Several vessels I leave Otago yearly for Eastern ports, land it only requires a firm in Dunedin iwlio would make the ham aud bacon trade their sole business to ensure a wide ami growing sale for a commodity which this Province is well able to produce af the best quality.