Measurements made on uncooked samples of two factory-cured sides from each of 22 Canadian packing plants indicated significant differences between plants in respect of tenderness. The maximum average cutting force required by the product of an individual plant was more than three times the minimum plant average. The individual results however were fairly uniformly distributed over the observed range of variation, neither the maximum nor the minimum representing an isolated extreme. Partial correlation coefficients indicated a significant influence of pH of both pump and cover pickle, in conjunction with number of "stitches" and days in cure respectively, on tenderness, but no appreciable relation of this property to salt content, moisture content, nitrate content or pH of the meat, or number of days from curing to receipt at the laboratory, was demonstrable.A second series of observations on samples heated at 20, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80 °C. for 5, 10, 20, and 40 hr., as in smoking, demonstrated significant interacting effects of the temperature and duration of heat treatment on tenderness. Excepting one notably anomalous result, the general tendency was for toughness to increase with the prolongation of temperatures of 20 to 50°, but to decrease with the duration of temperatures of 60 to 80°. On the average, the maximum toughness was observed after heating at 50 °C.