And for thirty or forty years into the present one

And for thirty or forty years into the present one

And for thirty or forty years into the present one

During the eighteenth century, and for thirty or forty years into the present one, farmers, small tradesmen, indeed, most families living in the country, who could afford it, at the fall of the year, salted and stored by as much beef as served the family through the winter. Hence bull baitinguntil suppressedprevailed in most of the northern towns and villages, in the month of November. The weather was then suitable for salting a supply of beef for winter use, and an extra quantity either of bull or heifer beef was quite saleable at that season of the year. An erroneous idea prevailedhad indeed become a settled conviction, that bull beef was much bettershould not be used as food, in fact, without the animal had been subject to the usual barbarous baiting.