The Raymer Enterprise

MEAT CLUBS ARE A SUCCESS
Farmers In the Kimbro Community In Travis County Have Practical Plan for Getting Meat,

Farmers may have fresh meat during a greater part of the year, even in the hot summer months, through a little community co-operation. 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 every 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 will start the procession.

One of the members is chosen to be the butcher, and receives $1 for each killing. In some years it 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. A's turn has come, the butcher will go to his farm, slaughter the animal, divide it into 12 parts (if there are 12 members in the club), weigh each part and put a tag on it with the name of the person whose turn it is to receive this particular part. All cuts are not of equal value, so it is arranged that if 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. If a family is small it 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 butcher's record will show who has received more meat than he furnished, or vice versa. To settle this, if 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 if 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 butcher's convenience, but this has been abandoned because it was a lot of trouble for the owner of the animal to drive to this place with the animal and then go from there to deliver the meat to the other members. The butcher is also more satisfied with the hides, because 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 county.