The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-09-10
Beef Clubs.

Fresh meat during the summer months
in the country is very desirable, and often
very difficult to obtain. Clubs are some
times formed for this purpose, in this
country, and for time work quite sue
cessfully. We should think they might
be so conducted as to furnish both excel
lent and cheap meat to the members at
regular intervals. For the benefit of our
readers we present the plan of such club.
as given by a correspondent of the RurGL
Sun, and which, he says, has been in sue
ceSSful operation for more than twenty
years:
To organize a club it requires sixteen
members, each member furnishing a beet
from eighteen months to two years old.
We begin to feed our little beef in the fall
or early winter, to be butchered the next
summer, so as to give time to thoroughly
fatten. We cast lots at the close of every
beef season TO regulate the time Of killing
the next season. This is done by putting
sixteen tickets in the hat, with numbers
running from one to sixteen. The time
of killing is regulated or fixed by the num-
Der you draw. In order to stimulate and
compel each member to furnish good beef,
we require a certain per cent. of tallOw to
the meat, and affiX Il penalty for failure,
anu ith tllN iol All StNI DNl NNills VI btAl
low By this means we never fail to Sc
cure thevery best article of beef. Twelve
and half is the maximum per cent. with
us. THAT is, however, conventional to be
regulated by the club. With us the party
furnishing the beef is fined S. if his beet
fails to make twelve and half per cent.
of tallOw to the meat. As a reward we
give SO to the member making the larg-
est per cent. of tallOw; and il is interest
ING to see the interest taken by the mem
bers to excel and carry off the premium,
to say nothing of the fine beef we get.
After the club is organized a suitable
member in the center of the neigbOrhoOd
is selected to do the butchering, and divide
the beef into sixteen parts, giving To each
member the same quantity and quality OF
beef, and for his service each member pays
the butcher 81. All the beeves are butch
cred at one place, and we have a pole
fOrked up with sixteen iron hooks, fasten-
ed in the pole upon which each member s
beef is hung. We kill every Saturday
morning, commencing the first Saturday
in May, suspending killing at times as ii
suits us, and renewing when we desire.
In a club of sixteen each member will get
about twenty-five pounds of fresh beef
every Saturday morning, as much as any
! family in the country needs per week.
| We require the butcher to keep a correct
! account of the weight of every beef killed,
and after the last beef is killed we run an
average, or rather divide the whole amount
| by sixteen, so as to get an average, and
! those falling under the average make II
up, and those going over the average
weight get pay for the excess furnished /;
so you see it is a fair and equitable inStitu-
ton. and comes nearer meeting the wants
and cOnveniences of "A neighbOrh0Od than
any arrangement | have ever seen tried,
and the beauty about it is, it costs nothing
scarcely but Il little trouble feeding cali
few months with little bran and meal
and you get in return for this little labor
finer beef than | have ever seen in any OF
the beef markets of the country.