A lot of people don't have access to hunting or (fresh kill) for their regular meat supply, but like you have said Cherrie, we can use meat that is on sale or that we purchase from stores or butcher shops, and smoking and drying meat can easily be done using methods that we have today.
Our family has used our oven to dehydrate meat, now we use a food dehydrator. Either way, preserving meat for snacking and for food preparedness is a smart way to keep and use meat, and it tastes really good too!