The Madison journal. (Tallulah, Madison Parish, La.) 1888-current, 1915-08-14
MEAT CLUBS ARE A SUCCESS
Farmers In the kimbro Community In
Travis County Have Practical
Plan for Getting Meat.

Farmers may have fresh meat dur
ing a greater part Of the year, even
In the hot summer months, through a
little community cooperation. In the
Kimbro community in Travis county
the farmers have demonstrated that
this can be done. Within a few miles
of Kimbro there are three meat
clubs" Two of these are beef CLUBS
and one of them is a sheep club. In
the beef club they slaughter a calf ev-
cry week to supply their members with
fresh meat, while in the sheep
club a sheep is killed. About
twelve people make up one OF these
clubs, with the exception of the sheep
club which includes merely three or
four families. They meet early in the
year to determine the order in which
the calf shall be furnished to the club,
and this is usually decided by the
age of the animals that the members
may happen to have. The person
who has the most mature calf VIII
start the procession.
One of the members is chosen TO
be the butcher, and receives 81 Tor
each killing. In some years 1t has been
the custom to give him the hide for his
trouble, but now the hide is kept by
the farmer who furnishes the animal
and the butcher is paid in cash. On
the Friday of the week when Mr.. AS
turn has come, the butcher will go to
his farm, slaughter the animal, divide
it into IL parts (if there are IL men,
bers in the club, weigh each part and
put a tag on 1t with the name of the
person whose turn II is to receive this
particular part. All cuts are not OF
equal value, so it is arranged that II
Mr.. A received the neck part this
week, the next week It goes to Mr.. b.
and so on so that when the year Is up
all have received the same kind Of
meat in their turn. The butcher keeps
the record II family is small 1t may
receive one-twenty-fourth instead of
one-twelfth OF the animal. OF course
not all animals, nor all parts. will be
Of the same weight. but the butchers
record will show who has received
more meat than he furnished or vice
versa. To settle this, IL Mr.. A has
furnished more meat than he received
during the year, he is paid five cents
a pound for the excess at the end of
the year, or II he furnished less he
pays the difference at the same rate.
After the animal is killed and divided
the farmer who owned it delivers the
meat to the other members of the
club. However, should the roads be
bad the members will relieve him of
this labor by coming in person to get
their share.
They used to have the custom of
bringing the calves to be butchered to
a certain place for the butchers con.
venience, but this has been aban-
doned because it was a lot of trouble
for the owner of the animal to drive
to this place with the animal and then
60 from there to deliver the meat to
the other members. The butcher is
also more satisfied with the hides. be-
cause these accumulate on his hands
and give him extra work. The clubs
have given great satisfaction.
However, Kimbro is not the only
community that has meat clubs. There
are several in Stonewall and Coryell
counties, and Austin county has them
scattered throughout the whole coun-
ty.