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it is lifted by a hook at the end of a swivel lever mounted on a post and swung around to a hanging bar, placed conveniently. This bar has sliding hooks made to receive the gambrel sticks, which have a hook permanently attached to each so that the carcass is quickly removed from the swivel lever to the slide hook on the bar. The upper edge of the bar is rounded and smoothed and greased to help the hooks to slide on it. This serves to hang all the hogs on the bar until they are cooled. If four persons are employed this work may be done very quickly, as they may divide the work between them; one hog is being scalded and cleaned while another is being dressed.

FIG. 11. EASY METHOD OF HANGING A CARCASS.

Divested of its coat, the carcass is washed off nicely with clean water before being disemboweled. For opening the hog, the operator needs a sharp butcher’s knife, and should know how to use it with dexterity, so as not to cut the entrails. The entrails and paunch, or stomach, are first removed, care being taken not to cut any; then the liver, the “dead ears” removed from the heart, and the heart cut open to remove any clots of blood that it may contain. The windpipe is then slit open, and the whole together is hung upon the gambrel beside the hog or placed temporarily into a tub of water. The “stretcher,” a small stick some sixteen inches long, is then placed across the bowels to hold the sides well open and admit the air to cool the carcass, and a chip or other small object is placed in the mouth to hold it open, and the interior parts of the hog about the shoulders and gullet are nicely washed to free them from stains of blood. The carcass is then left to hang upon the gallows in order to cool thoroughly before it is cut into pieces or put away for the night.

Where ten or twelve hogs are dressed every year, it will pay to have a suitable building arranged for the work. An excellent place may be made in the driveway between a double corncrib, or in a wagon shed or an annex to the barn where the feeding pen is placed. The building should have a stationary boiler in it, and such apparatus as has been suggested, and a windlass used to do the lifting.