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Whatever may be said as to the most humane modes of putting to death domestic animals intended for food, butchering with the knife, all things considered, is the best method to pursue with the hog. The hog should be bled thoroughly when it is killed. Butchering by which the heart is pierced or the main artery leading from it severed, does this in the most effectual way, ridding the matter of the largest percentage of blood, and leaving it in the best condition for curing and keeping well. The very best bacon cannot be made of meat that has not been thoroughly freed from blood, and this is a fact that should be well remembered. Expert butchers, who know how to seize and hold the hog and insert the knife at the proper place, are quickly through with the job, and often before the knife can be withdrawn from the incision, the blood will spurt out in a stream and insensibility and death will speedily ensue. It is easy, however, for a novice to make a botch of it; hence the importance that none but an expert be given a knife for this delicate operation.

There are some readily made devices by which one man at killing time may do as much as three or four, and with one helper a dozen hogs may be made into finished pork between breakfast and dinner, and without any excitement or worry or hard work. It is supposed that the hogs are in a pen or pens, where they may be easily roped by a noose around one hind leg. This being done, the animal is led to the door and guided into a box, having a slide door to shut it in. The bottom of the box is a hinged lid. As soon as the hog is safely in the box and shut in by sliding down the back door, and fastening it by a hook, the box is turned over, bringing the hog on his back. The bottom of the box is opened immediately and one man seizes a hind foot, to hold the animal, while the other sticks the hog in the usual manner. The box is turned and lifted from the hog, which, still held by the rope is moved to the dressing bench. All this may be done while the previous hog is being scalded and dressed, or the work may be so managed that as soon as one hog is hung and cleaned the next one is ready for the scalding.

FIG. 5. HEATING WATER IN KETTLES.