Page Fox
One thousand ways to make money

To the reader

Friend – Are you looking for a place? We tell you how to find it. Are you poorly paid for your work? We tell you how to get better wages. Have you goods you want to sell? We suggest new plans.

Are the profits of shop, store, office, or farm unsatisfactory? We tell you how to increase your income.

Do you want to change your business? We suggest a vast number of new ways to make money.

Have you a boy whom you wish to put to a trade? We tell you what occupations pay the best.

Do you wish to make money in your own home? We give you a list of 100 paying articles which you can make and sell.

Have you a little plot of ground around your house? We tell you how to make it yield you a yearly revenue.

Do you want to know how our rich men made their money? We give the secrets away by the hundred.

Do you want to know what to do with your savings? We give you a list of the best-paying investments.

Have you practical ideas? Are you skilled in the use of tools? Would you like to take out a patent? We present to you a list of over 300 inventions needed, and in some cases even suggest how the article should be made.

Have you literary ability? or reportorial talent? or advertising genius? We mention 100 ways by which you may be able to make a living by the pen.

In short the 1,000 ways of money-making in this book are 1,000 nails to hang your fortune on. Others have profited by these suggestions. Why may not you?

Introduction

The object of this work is to help people who are out of employment to secure a situation; to enable persons of small means to engage in business and become their own employers; to give men and women in various lines of enterprise ideas whereby they may succeed; and to suggest new roads to fortune by the employment of capital. The author has been moved to the undertaking by the reflection that there exists nowhere a book of similar character. There have indeed been published a multitude of books which profess to tell men how to succeed, but they all consist of merely professional counsel expressed in general terms. We are told that the secrets of success are “industry and accuracy,” “the grasping of every opportunity,” “being wide awake,” “getting up early and sitting up late,” and other cheap sayings quite as well known to the taker as to the giver. Even men who have made their mark, when they come to treat of their career in writing, seem unable to give any concrete suggestions which will prove helpful to other struggling thousands, but simply tell us they won by “hard work,” or by “close attention to business.”

The author of this book has gone to work on a totally different plan. I have patiently collected the facts in the rise of men to wealth and power, have collated the instances and instruments of fortune, and from these have sifted out the real secrets of success. When as in a few cases, the worn-out proverbs and principles are quoted, these are immediately reinforced by individual examples of persons who attributed their advancement to the following of these rules; but, in general, the suggestions are new, and in very many cases plans and lines of work are proposed by the author which are entirely original, and so far as he knows, absolutely untried. Hence, the work becomes of incomparable value to business men who are constantly seeking new means to interest the public and to dispose of their goods.

Of course, the vast field of action treated of in this work lies beyond the experience of any one man, but the author has talked with business men in every walk in life and gleaned from them the essential facts in their career; in many instances these facts are not the things they have done, but the things they would do if they could begin again, thus giving the reader the benefit both of their success and failure. As a book offering opportunities to the ambitious; presenting openings to those seeking a wider scope for their faculties; affording stimulation to persons of sluggish blood; and giving away trade and business secrets never before divulged; the author feels confident that the little work stands unrivaled, and as such he modestly offers it to the public for its approval.

One thousand ways to make money

Chapter I
How to get a place

You Can Get It – Positions Yawning for Young Men – Any Young Man May Become Rich – Men Who Began at the Bottom and Reached the Top – How A. T. Stewart Got His Start – John Jacob Astor’s Secret of Success – How Stephen Girard’s Drayman Made a Fortune – $100,000 for Being Polite – How One Man’s Error Made Another Man’s Fortune – Secret of the Bon Marché in Paris – How Edison Succeeded – A Sure Way to Rise – How a Young Man Got His Salary Increased $2,000 – A Sharp Yankee Peddler.

Young men are often discouraged because the desirable places all seem to be filled. But remember there is always room for the right man. Says a New York millionaire: “I hold that any young man, possessing a good constitution and a fair degree of intelligence, may become rich.” Says another business man: “I have made a personal canvass of a dozen of the largest business houses in five different commercial and professional lines to see to what extent there exist openings for young men.” In only two of the houses approached were the heads of the firms satisfied the positions of trust in those houses were filled by capable men. And in each of these two houses I was told that “of course, if the right sort of a young man came along who could tell us something about our business we did not already know, we should not let him slip through our fingers. Positions can always be created. In four of the houses, positions had been open for six months or more, and the sharpest kind of a lookout kept for possible occupants. These positions commanded salaries all the way from $2,000 to $5,000 a year. In the publishing business, I know of no less than six positions actually yawning for the men to come and fill them – not clerical positions, but positions of executive authority. Young men are desired in these places because of their progressive ideas and capacity to endure work.”

Another prominent man who interviewed the heads of several large firms writes in a recent periodical as follows: “It is not with these firms a question of salary; it is a question of securing the highest skill with the most perfect reliability. This being secured, almost any salary to be named will be cheerfully paid. A characteristic of the business world to-day is that its institutions, empires in themselves, have grown to be too large for the handling of ordinary men. These institutions are multiplying in excess of the number of men whose business skill is broad and large enough to direct and command them. Hence, the really commanding business brain is at an immense premium in the market. A salary of $50,000 a year as president of a railroad or manufacturing company at first sight seems exorbitant; but the payment of such a salary usually means pure business. The right or the wrong man at the head of a great business interest means the making or the unmaking of fortunes for the stockholders. Only a single glance at the industrial world is needed to show that here is room for the advent of genius of the first order. This world, seething like a caldron, is boiling to the brim with questions of the most vexing and menacing kind.”

Look at the men who reached the top of fortune’s ladder, and see under what discouraging circumstances they began. James Fisk, called the Prince of the Erie, rose to that position from a ragged newsboy. Stephen Girard began on nothing, and became the greatest millionaire of his time. Young men, would you scorn to row a boat for a living? Cornelius Vanderbilt plied a boat between Staten Island and New York. Would you tramp the country as a surveyor for a map? Jay Gould began in that way, and forty years later satisfied certain doubters of his financial standing by showing them certificates of stocks worth $80,000,000. Do you fear to have your hands calloused with ax or saw? John W. Mackay, who acquired a fortune of $20,000,000, started in life as a shipwright. Is it beneath your social station to handle butter and eggs? “Lucky” Baldwin, the multi-millionaire, kept a country store and made his first venture by taking his goods overland in a cart to Salt Lake City. Are your fingers too delicate for the broom handle? A. T. Stewart began his business career by sweeping out the store. Do you abhor vile odors? Peter Cooper made $6,000,000 in the glue business.

Tens of thousands are looking for a place. Most of them have had places, but could not keep them. If you follow all the rules below, having obtained a place, you will never need to seek one again. The place will seek you. Employers are in search of the qualities herein to be considered, and they are willing to pay liberally for them. They are qualities that come high everywhere. If you possess them, you can in a short time command your own price. But do not scorn to take the humblest place. Merit, like murder, will out. Be sure you have the winning cards and wait.

1. The Secret of Work. – Men will employ you if you mean business. When you find men working, work with them. Lend a hand. Every employer would rather employ a busy man than an idle man. When he sees you working, he will watch you. If he likes you, he will make you an offer. A glazier, being refused work at a place where a church was being erected, put down his kit of tools, picked up the broken pieces of glass which the workmen had thrown away, and, laboring just as if he had been hired to work, fashioned the finest church window in the world, and became rich and famous.

2. Nature’s Furrow. – Plow in nature’s furrow. In general, a man is fitted for the thing he likes. Do that which you can do best. What you want to do you are called to do, and what you are called to do you can do. Darwin says that the fittest survive because they have a slight advantage over those which do not survive. Your liking for an occupation is the advantage you have over those who do not like it. Follow the hint, whether it be to publish a paper or peg shoes. A leading merchant in New York found his calling through having loaned money to a friend. He had to take his friend’s store to secure his money, and thus learned his gift for merchandise. The man was A. T. Stewart.

3. General Details. – The best general is General Details. In business life, no matter is small enough to be despised. To master an infinite number of small things is to prepare yourself to master great things. When your employers see that you have everything at your fingers’ ends, they will intrust you with larger interests, and greater responsibility means greater pay. John Jacob Astor knew the minutest point about every part of his great business. That was the secret of his success.

4. The Prismatic Brain. – Be many-sided, but transparent. Tell your employer where you have failed. Do not try to cover up a fault. Be absolutely honest. You may get along for a time on “shady” lines, but such success is only gained at the expense of ultimate loss. It is absolutely essential that your employer should have the utmost confidence in your integrity. Try by every means to gain that confidence. Court examination. Invite inspection. Remember that his profound belief in you – belief in you when out of business hours as well as in – is your surest stepping-stone to promotion. Character is power. Your success depends as much upon what you are as upon what you know or do. Stephen Girard once trusted his drayman to buy a shipload of tea worth $200,000. He trusted him because he knew his man, and he gave the young man the profits of the transaction, which amounted to $50,000.

5. The Bridled Tongue. – Do not cross your employer in any way. Never dispute with him. You may be sure that you are right, but do not say so. You need not be a Democrat or an Episcopalian because your employer is, but if you are wise you will avoid discussing with him questions of politics or religion. Courtesy pays. Ross Winans, of Philadelphia, secured a business that netted him $100,000 a year simply through his politeness to two Russian agents, to whom others in the same trade had accorded scant courtesy.

6. Studying the Stair Above. – Study, not stars, but stairs. Learn all about the position next above you. When you can point out new methods to your employer, advance new ideas, or suggest new channels of trade or lines of work, you are surely on the way to promotion. Only, be sure that your new ideas are practical. There is no more direct road to the confidence of your employer than for him to see that you understand any part of his affairs better than he does himself. Employ your spare moments in studying the business. While the other clerks are joking, do you be learning. While the students at the boarding-house in Andover were chaffing each other during the wait for breakfast, Joseph Cook would turn to a big dictionary in one corner of the room and look out a word. He climbed many stairs above them.

7. The Missing Factor. – Your employers are wrestling with a question. They are uncertain whether to invest or not. They are doubtful about the character or standing of some man with whom they are or may become heavily involved. It will be worth thousands to you if you can procure any scrap of information that will help to set them right. A young clerk who discovered an error in Bradstreet’s was soon admitted to partnership in his employer’s firm.

8. The Magnifying Glass. – Make the most of your present position. Wear magnifying glasses. Exalt the importance of every item. Let not the smallest thing be done in a slipshod way. If you are answering letters for the firm, answer them briefly but completely. Remember that brevity is not brusqueness. If you are waiting on customers, treat the small customer just as courteously as the large one. You may be sure that your employer knows the market value of politeness. In the Bon Marché in Paris, the employers determined that something must be done more than was done in other stores so that every visitor would remember the place with pleasure and come again. The result was the most exquisite politeness ever seen in a mercantile establishment, and it has developed the largest business of its kind in the world.

9. The Microscopic Eye. – The microscope shows a hundred things the naked eye cannot see. Endeavor to see what others fail to see – new possibilities of sales, new means of profit, new methods of doing things. It was by steadily looking at a thing until he saw what was not apparent to the superficial view that Thomas Edison became the greatest electrician of the world.

10. Scoring a Point When Off Duty. – Do something for your employer when you are out of the shop or store. You may be sure that he will appreciate it. It is a fallacy that he has no claim on you when off duty. Do not give him the idea that you have no interest in the business except to get your salary, and no time to spare him except what you are paid for. Do not watch the clock; do not filch a few moments at the beginning or end of the day’s work, and do not ask leave of absence except when absolutely necessary. Do overwork and unpaid-for work, and when you see a point in favor of your firm, fasten to it. Become essential to the place, and you will rise in the place. “I can’t spare you,” said the publisher of a New York magazine to his advertising agent when another publisher offered him an increase of $1,000. “Let’s see – you are getting $5,000 now; I’ll make it $7,000.”

11. The Study of Men. – This is the very key to success. The proper study of mankind is man. The greatest college on earth is the business world. The man who can sell the most goods is the one who knows the weaknesses of human nature, and how to avail himself of them. Your best diploma is a big bill of sale. Sell something to everybody – what the customer wants if you have it; if not, what he doesn’t want; but at any rate, sell him something. It is related of a Yankee book-peddler that he sold three copies of the same book to a family in one day – to the husband in the store, to the wife who was calling at a neighbor’s, and to the daughter at home. And not one of the family wanted the book.

Following the above lines, and adding thereto good health and steady habits, you cannot fail to be promoted and to rise to the highest position of responsibility, if not even to actual partnership in the firm. These are the qualities that proprietors are yearning for – nay, actually groaning for, but which are hard to find in the average man. Employers are keeping the sharpest kind of a watch for the right man. It is stated on the best of authority that there are a thousand business firms in New York and vicinity each having one or more $5,000 positions awaiting the men who can fill them. If you have the right qualities or will acquire them, at least a thousand great firms want your services, and posts of responsibility with almost unlimited salary await your hand or brain.

Chapter II
Starting in business

Why Men Fail – Luck on the side of Pluck – Marking the Day’s Profits Before they Begin – No Diamond Like the Eye – The Man Who Takes His Bank to Bed With Him – The Two Hands of Fortune.

Many men fail because they undertake a business without considering whether there is room for it; others because they do not thoroughly establish themselves in the place, making no effort to get a constituency; and yet others because they do not keep the goods that are in demand, or do not renew the stock sufficiently quick, or do not present their goods in an attractive way. Such causes of success or failure as are in the line of this work will now be considered. Here are the rules of an old merchant which he would take for his guidance were he to start anew in business:

12. The Minimum Basis. – Enumerate the entire number of heads of families in the town, village, ward, or neighborhood where you purpose to begin business. Figure out the number of such persons you will require as a minimum basis in order to get on – that is, how many persons or families, spending each on an average a certain amount per day or week at your place of business, you will require in order to make a living. Do not go blindly into your work, trusting to luck. Luck is always on the side of pluck and tact. Determine what per cent. of the people’s patronage is absolutely essential to your success. The first step is to ascertain if such per cent. is likely to come to you.

13. The House to House Canvass. – Make a personal canvass from house to house. Do not trust the work to your friend, relative, or clerk. Nobody can help you so much as you can help yourself. Nobody has your interests so much at heart as you have. Tell people pleasantly that you are a new bidder for their patronage. Inform them what you propose to do. Make them to understand that no man shall undersell you, or give them in any way a better bargain. If possible, take a few samples of your choicest goods with you.

14. The Choice Location. – If you become popular, the people will come to you; but at first you must go to them. Your place need not be central or on a corner, but it must be where many people pass. Step out largely and conspicuously. You could make no greater mistake than to rent a shabby place on a back street. Have out all manner of signs, curious, newsy, and alluring. Do not think to sustain yourself by people’s sympathies. Men will trade most where they can do best.

15. The Maximum Basis. – The maximum basis is the high-water mark. It is the number of persons or families that under the most favorable state of things can be your patrons. All you cannot expect. Kindred, religion, politics, friendships, and secret fraternities, will hold a portion of the community to the old traders. The sharpest rivalry will meet you. Also, you must consider what incursions are likely to be made by out-of-town dealers, and what prospect there is of others setting up business in the place. But you should have an ideal trade toward which you steadily work. Declare daily to yourself, “my gross earnings shall be $-per day,” or “– (so many) persons shall be my patrons.” When you fall below the mark, bestir yourself in many ways.

16. The Personal Equation. – Remember that you yourself in contact with your customers count for more than anything else. The weather of the face, the temperature of the hand, the color of the voice, will win customers where other means fail. Make your patrons feel that you are their friend. Inquire about members of their family. Be exceedingly polite. Recommend your goods. Mention anything of an especially attractive or meritorious nature you may have. Join the church, the regiment, the fire company, and the secret society. Become “all things to all men, if by any means you can sell to some.” Be everywhere in your place of business. Oversee the smallest details. Trust as little as possible to your clerks. The diamond of success is the master’s eye. Remember there is no fate. There are opportunity, purpose, grit, push, pluck, but no fate. If you fail, do not lay the blame upon circumstances, but upon yourself. Enthusiasm moves stones. You must carry your business in your brain. “A bank never gets to be very successful,” says a noted financier, “until it gets a president who takes it to bed with him.” There was an angel in Michael Angelo’s muddy stone, and there is a fortune in your humdrum store. Hard work and close thought are the hands that carve it out.

Chapter III
Money in trade

What Kind of Advertisements Pay – “Don’t Fail to See the Blizzard Saturday Night” – The Keynote of a $20,000,000 Sale – Selling Goods by the Mile – Watches for Bait – How to Get Five – Year Customers – “Trade With Me and Get a House and Lot” – Why Trade at Push and Pluck’s? – Bargains in Buttons Often Means High Prices in Broadcloth.

Thousands fail in business every year when an idea put into practical operation would have tided them over the trouble and opened the road to a competence. This chapter will tell you how to succeed. No man with common ability and industry who puts the half or even the quarter of these ideas into practice can possibly fail. The great thing is to make people buy your goods. But to induce them to purchase you must first of all call attention to what you have to sell. Here are a few of the ways in which this is to be done. The following methods will fairly compel the people to trade with you, but you must bear in mind that as soon as the influence of one device begins to flag it must be immediately succeeded by another.

17. The Interlined Advertisement. – Advertisements are not read unless persons are looking for something in that line. This is because they are all placed by themselves. Your bid for patronage must be put in the midst of the reading matter if it is to attract general attention. Many publishers will not do this, but your chief and only point in appearing in the paper is to have your advertisement read, and it pays better to insert it in a journal with 5,000 readers who will all see it than in one having 100,000 subscribers, hardly 100 of whom will glance at the advertisement. You can afford to pay handsomely if the publisher will give you a line of black-faced type to eight or ten lines of news.

18. The Picturesque Name. – Have a name for your store such as will easily fit everybody’s mouth. “The Beehive,” “The Blizzard,” “The Buttercup,” or “The Bonanza,” are suggestive titles. Many customers are attracted by the talk of their acquaintances, and it is much easier to tell a friend that you bought an article at “The Hub,” or “The Sun,” than to attempt the unpronounceable name of a proprietor, or to give a forgotten number. Successful men in several lines of business assert that they owe much of their good fortune to the happy hit of a popular name.

19. The Pictorial Wreck. – A writer with the gift of a lively imagination can write something interesting in the way of a fanciful battle between customers and goods. Head lines, “Great Slaughter in – (the taking name of your store),” “Wreck of Old Conservatism,” “Smash of High Prices,” “Ruined by the Rush.” Then would follow a graphic description of the charge of customers upon wares in which the store was almost wrecked by the enormous number of people who took advantage of the under-cost prices. People enjoy this kind of pleasantry, and the impulse to follow the crowd is almost irresistible. A certain New York house grew from a small to a great one by this method of advertising.

20. Red Letter Day. – Have a day in which you offer special bargains to the people of a certain town, village or hamlet. Put up flaming posters, announcing “Squashville day,” “Jonesboro Day,” “Bloomington day.”

21. Class Discount. – You may draw numbers of men to your place by this means. Secret fraternities, workingmen’s orders, church societies, wheelmen’s leagues, will be attracted to you if they know you specially favor them. Fortunes have been made by close attention to these great organizations.

22. The Honest Flaw. – Strictly instruct your clerks to tell your customers the precise nature of every article; if the quality is inferior, make them to understand exactly what they are getting for their money; and if there be a flaw, let them be careful to point it out. By such means thousands of people who cannot trust their own judgment in these matters, will be attracted to a place where they are certain to be treated fairly. A. T. Stewart, who began business in a modest store, and who, in the latter part of his life sold $20,000,000 worth of goods every year, declared that this plan was the keynote of his success.

23. The Premium Clerk. – You need clerks who can induce acquaintances to visit your store, cajole visitors into customers, and coax customers to become larger buyers. If you have a number of clerks and your business will admit of it, offer a monthly premium to the one who brings into the store the largest number of new buyers or into the cash-drawer the heaviest receipts. There are certain kinds of business where this plan will work, and will be provocative of such competition as greatly to increase trade.

24. The Railroad Mileage. – Arrange, if possible, with some railroad company to issue mileage tickets as premiums to those who will trade with you. At two cents a mile you could afford to give two miles of travel for every one dollar’s worth of goods. At that rate $500 worth of goods would buy a $20 mileage ticket.

25. The Dial Dollars. – How many figures on the dial of your watch? Twenty-eight, counting the number VI, which is generally either omitted or only partly indicated. Fix a big dial two feet or more in diameter in some prominent part of your store, and announce that when a customer has traded an amount equal to the total figures on the dial you will present him with a watch. Of course, the timepiece would be a very cheap one, but many a parent will trade with you for the sake of getting a watch for his child.

26. First Customer Package. – In some periods of the day you will have more custom than you can well attend to, while at other times you will have nothing to do. The following plan will perhaps help to equalize trade, and also give you additional buyers: Suspend a package in some conspicuous part of your store with the announcement thereon that it will be given free to the first customer in the morning.

27. The Carpet Coupon. – By a system of large-sized coupons – we will say a foot square – you can put into practice a unique system that will appeal to the heart of every housewife. Publish that you will give a free carpet of a certain size and grade when a fixed amount has been traded. A square foot of a coupon represents a sum of money spent in the store – perhaps one dollar. Every woman by measuring her room can learn how many dollars’ worth of goods she must buy before she can have a free carpet.

28. The House Lot Coupon. – This is an extension of carpet coupon. A certain amount of purchased goods entitles one to a building lot, which, if in the country, need not be of great cost. Have the particular lots selected and advertised. Another plan is to offer the lot to the largest purchaser within a certain time – possibly five years. This is a good way to hold on to customers.

29. Price – Time Grade. – If you have the credit system, have also a gradation of prices so as to encourage people to pay at the earliest possible time. A system like this would do – forty days full price; thirty days, two per cent. off; twenty days, three per cent. off; ten days, four per cent. off; cash, five per cent. off.

30. Sales Bulletin. – People like to buy where others buy. Success brings success. If you are doing well, you may do better. Have a large bulletin board in front of your store, or near it, announcing your sales for the past week. Newspapers boom themselves in like manner by publishing their enormous circulation.

31. Best Reason Prize. – Offer a prize to the one who will give the best reason for trading at Push amp; Pluck’s, and then insert in the form of an advertisement in a leading paper a list of the best reasons. Six months before Christmas offer presents to all who will trade a certain amount before that holiday.

32. Birthday Calendar. – A calendar with the birthdays of your customers (age of course omitted), would attract attention, and the offer to give a present to any one trading a certain amount before his birthday would certainly add to your receipts.

33. Conspicuous Price-List. – Buyers are caught like fish. Display in your window a list of cut prices. Passers-by who cannot resist the opportunity of a bargain will come in, and often be induced to purchase the goods which are not reduced.

34. The Early Discount. – In order to equalize the trade of the day announce that you will give a slight discount to persons trading during the dull hours.

35. The Money-Space Counter. – Determine that every portion of your store shall pay. Have every lineal foot of your counters calculated at a certain rate of profit. If you find a department that does not pay, change methods or your goods, and if still unsuccessful drop it. Many large dealers fail because they keep departments where the expenses are more than the profits. But if every foot of room pays only a little, the entire store must pay handsomely.

It will be seen in the foregoing how every leading impulse in human nature is appealed to – curiosity and cupidity, honesty and economy, personal flattery and local pride. If, in addition to these powerful inducements to patronage, you combine shrewdness in buying and cautiousness in trusting, if your goods are excellent in quality and generous in quantity, if your place of business is neat and attractive, and your service marked by promptness and politeness; then it is impossible to fail; you have all the elements of prosperity, and are certain to be a great and successful merchant.

Chapter IV
Money in the introduction of a new article

Success of the “Imitation Cigar” – The Dealer’s Seeds of Gold are Black – Barnum’s Belief in Humbugs – Tricks for Trade – Politics for the Men, Novels for the Women – How the Remington Typewriter was Boomed – A Business Man’s Experience in Advertising.

New articles in all lines of trade are constantly appearing. Inventors of mechanical appliances, authors of books, proprietors of patent medicines, introducers of something novel in groceries, and promoters of new departures in dry and fancy goods, are all anxious to have the public take their products and pay them in cash. The problem is how to introduce the article. However meritorious it may be, it is useless unless the people find it out. The following are believed to be unique methods of advertising:

36. The Puzzle. – Buy some patented puzzle which can be manufactured cheap and scattered broadcast over the land. There is no better way to advertise. If men do not solve the puzzle, they will remember what is stamped on it. The “Get-off-the-earth-Chinese puzzle” enormously advertised its purchasers.

37. The Toy Imitation. – Wooden nutmegs and shoe-peg oats have duly advertised the shrewd ways of the people of Connecticut. A man recently made a hit by the “imitation cigar,” which is only a piece of wood of the shape and color of a cigar. Every boy wants one. As an advertising medium it was an immense success. Think of something as common and cheap as a cigar, get up an imitation for the children, have your enterprise stamped upon it, and it will go from one end of the land to the other.

38. The Cartoon. – A caricature of some political person or situation is always taking. Hit off some social craze, or give a witty representation of some matter of passing interest. Drops of ink in this way are seeds of gold, and the harvest will be golden.

39. The Conjurer. – This is a good way to advertise when the article is a cheap affair which can be shown in the street. There are few things so attractive to the masses as the tricks of the sleight-of-hand performer. Mr. P. T. Barnum uttered at least an half-truth when he said the people liked to be humbugged. For a few dollars you can get an equipment, and in a few days’ practice you can acquire enough of the art for your purpose. You can draw a crowd wherever there are people. When you have performed a few tricks, your climax should be a shrewd advertisement which can be worked into the last performance.

40. The Striking Figure. – If your goods are on sale in some prominent store, this device is sure to draw attention. Make a figure of some animal or vegetable or other form, if your article will lend itself to such a work. The figure could be some prominent man, or represent an historic scene, or illustrate some popular movement. A dealer in confectionery had in his window a bicycle made all of candy.

41. The Advertising Story. – Offer a prize to the one who will write the best story about the merits of your article. The latter must be brought deftly into the story, and the award should be based upon the merits of the literary production and the skill in the use of the advertisement. Every competitor should be required to buy a small number of the articles, and the story should be published.

42. The Word-Builder. – Another prize might be offered to the one who could compose the greatest number of words from the name of your article or invention. The name ought to include at least a dozen letters, and there should be a set of rules for building words. Every contestant must buy your invention from whose title he is to build words.

43. The Popular Pun. – This is an expensive way of advertising, but an immensely paying one. You make a pun upon some fad of the day, a hit upon some general craze, a piercing of some passing bubble, a political quib. Something of this nature printed several times in the issue of the daily papers would make your venture known to everybody.

44. The Political Guesser. – If your enterprise admits of the coupon system, offer a prize to the one who will guess the successful candidate at the next election, and come the nearest to the figures of his plurality. The contestant must purchase one of your articles, and in this way hundreds of thousands may be sold. Every presidential election is the occasion of the floating of many things by this scheme.

45. The Geometrical Group. – Some wares, such as fancy soaps and canned goods, admit of a grouping which is very attractive to the eye. Pyramids, cones, circles, and towers, always draw attention. Some mechanical device whereby motion is produced will be sure to draw a crowd to your show window.

46. The Pictorial Comparison. – If you are sure of your ground, draw a diagram or other figure, comparing your staple with those of others in the market. In this way the Royal Baking Powder Company pushed to the front, comparing with heavy black lines its product with the outputs of other companies.

47. The Open Challenge. – And if you are still further confident that you have the best thing of its kind, you may issue a challenge to your competitors. Make it apparent that you are anxious, even clamorous, for a trial of your product against others. By this means you will establish yourself in the confidence of the public. The Remington Typewriter was boomed in this way.

48. The Book Gift. – Try the religious field. Issue leaflets or tiny books with paper covers, costing not more than two or three dollars a thousand, and offer them as gifts to Sunday-schools or other children’s organization. Most Sunday-school superintendents would be glad to give away booklets of this kind if they could be obtained free of charge. The books should contain a bright story, a few pictures, and, of course, a taking presentation of your wares.

49. Sunday-school Supplies. – In some cases, you might even be warranted in issuing the supplies of a Sunday school, at least for a portion of the year. The books in the last number might not in every case be read, but the picture papers, lesson leaves, and other helps, are all looked over, even if not studied. You could in many cases present them, reserving large advertising space for yourself so as to net a good profit. The class of customers thus obtained would be the very best. Do not hope for large returns unless you are willing to spend money. Money is the manure that creates crops, the blood that makes fatness, the wind that fans fortune, the sap that runs into golden fruit. Money is the bread on the waters that “returneth after many days.” It seems like the sheerest folly to spend so much in advertising, but you cannot reap bountifully unless you sow bountifully. “For every dollar spent in advertising,” declares a successful merchant, “I have reaped five.”

Chapter V
Money in the home store

How to Make Money at Home – One Hundred Ways to Get Gain in Your Own House – How to Get One Hundred Per Cent. Profit – Make Your Own Goods – Cheaper to Make than to Buy – Anybody Can do It – A Woman as Well as a Man – A Chance for Persons With Small Capital – Three Profits in One Sale.

How? On every article sold there is first of all the profit of the manufacturer, then of the wholesale dealer, and finally of the retailer. There is commonly a fourth, that of the freighter. If you keep a retail store, you must pay the man who makes the goods, the man who transports the goods, and the man who keeps the goods in large stock, and all this leaves you only a small margin of profit. In the following plan you avoid all these costs, pay only for the raw material, and make the four profits yourself.

You may begin your sales in your own home. If you have a large room fronting the street and near it, a little alteration will make it a veritable store. An expenditure of $25 should give you a show window and some nice shelves. Have a workroom in connection with your store. If your sales at first are small, you can put in your spare time in the making of your goods, and afterward as your custom increases you can employ help. The following articles are easily made. Many of them are novel, but all are salable if the store is properly managed.

Section I. Household Ornaments

A home may be rendered attractive by a few simple ornaments that are very cheap. Vines, grasses, etc., add touches of beauty to a home and cost very little. Few people know how to prepare these little curiosities, and many would esteem it too much trouble to get and arrange the material if they did know. But most of these persons would buy them if the materials were prepared, and the vines, etc., ready to grow. You must have models of each kind in full growth in order to excite their admiration, and then you must have others in the initial stage for sale. Take pains to show the models, and explain the method of treating the plants and vines. The following cost little, and can be sold for from 300 to 500 per cent. profit. Some of your patrons will prefer to buy the models outright, and others to grow them themselves.

50. Crystallized Grasses. – Put in water as much alum as can be dissolved. Pour into an earthen jar and boil slowly until evaporated nearly one half. Suspend the grasses in such a manner that their tops will be under the solution. Put the whole in a cool place where not the least draught of air will disturb the formation of crystals. In twenty-four to thirty-six hours take out the grasses, and let them harden in a cool room. For blue crystals, prepare blue vitriol or sulphate of copper in the same manner. Gold crystals can be produced by adding tumeric to the alum solution, and purple crystals by a few drops of extract of logwood. Sell them at twenty-five cents a bunch.

51. Leaf Impressions. – Hold oiled paper in the smoke of a lamp, or of pitch, until it becomes coated with smoke. Then take a perfect leaf, having a pretty outline, and after warming it between the hands, lay the leaf upon the smoked side of the paper, with the under side down, press it evenly upon the paper so that every part may come in contact, go over it lightly with a rolling-pin, then remove the leaf with care to a piece of white paper, and use the rolling-pin again. You will then have a beautiful impression of the delicate veins and outline of the leaf. A sheet containing a dozen such leaves should bring you twenty-five cents; if arranged in a pretty white album, with a different kind of leaf for every page, the selling price should not be less than one dollar.

52. Vine and Trellis. – Put a sweet potato in a tumbler of water, or any similar glass vessel; let the lower end of the tuber be about two inches from the bottom of the vessel; keep on the mantel shelf, and sun it for an hour or two each day. Soon the “eyes” of the potato will throw up a pretty vine. Now with some small sticks or coarse splints construct a tiny trellis, which, if placed in the window, will soon find a customer.

53. The Suspended Acorn. – Suspend an acorn by a piece of thread, within half an inch of the surface of some water contained in a vase, tumbler or saucer, and allow it to remain undisturbed for several weeks. It will soon burst open, and small roots will seek the water; a straight and tapering stem, with beautiful, glossy green leaves, will shoot upward, and present a very pleasing appearance. Supply water of the same warmth once a month, and add bits of charcoal to keep it from souring. If the leaves turn yellow, put a drop of ammonia into the water, and it will renew their luxuriance.

54. Moss and Cone. – Take a saucer and fill it with fresh green moss. Place in the center a large pine cone, having first wet it thoroughly. Then sprinkle it with grass seed. The moisture will close the cone partially, and in a day or two tiny grass spears will appear in the interstices, and in a week you will have a perfect cone covered with graceful verdure. The advantage of this, as well as of the other pretty things in this section, is that they are fresh and green in the midst of winter, and people are attracted to the slice of spring in your window when the outside world is mantled with snow.

55. The Tumbler of Peas. – Take a common tumbler or fruit can and fill it nearly full of soft water. Tie a bit of coarse lace or cheese-sacking over it, and covering it with a layer of peas, press down into the water. In a few days the peas will sprout, the little thread-like roots going down through the lace into the water, while the vines can be trained upon a pretty little frame.

56. The Hanging Turnip. – Take a large turnip and scrape out the inside, leaving a thick wall all around. Fill the cavity with earth, and plant in it some clinging vine or morning glory. Suspend the turnip with cords, and in a little time the vines will twine around the strings, and the turnip, sprouting from below, will put forth leaves and stems that will turn upward and gracefully curl around the base.

57. Bleached Leaves. – Mix one drachm chloride of lime with one pint of water, and add sufficient acetic acid to liberate the chlorine. Steep the leaves about ten minutes, or until they are whitened. Remove them on a piece of paper and wash them in clean water. They are now ready for sale, and all you need do is to arrange a dozen of them on a sheet of black paper, or in a dark-colored album, and expose them in your show window.

58. The Artificial Plant. – Take the glossy silk stuff known as taffeta. Dye the piece the proper green color before cutting. After it is dried, prepare with gum arabic on one side to represent the glossy surface of the leaves, and with starch on the other to give the velvety appearance of the under side. Use a fine goffering tool to make the veins and indentations. Glue the leaves to the stem, and place to advantage in your store window, where, if you have been skillful, they can hardly be distinguished from the leaves of a growing plant.

If you are moderately successful, procure a book about household ornaments and artificial plants, and you will learn to make many more designs. We have selected these because they are the cheapest and most easily made. All the above, except the albums, should sell for twenty-five cents. Remember that a great deal depends upon your taste in arranging, your manner of explaining, and your adroitness in recommending. You must be so in love with your plants as to be enthusiastic. In general, a lady succeeds in this work better than a gentleman.

Section 2. Tea Dishes

At almost no cost, you find yourself established in the midst of dozens of clinging vines and pretty plants. Now for the next step. Have a few appetizing tea-dishes in your window. Put out a sign, telling people that you will have every night certain fine and fresh table delicacies on sale. The effect of dainty dishes in close proximity to graceful vines is exceedingly tempting to the appetite.

59. Delicious Ham. – If very neat, you can sell to many families cold boiled ham for supper or lunch. Put the ham in cold water, and simmer gently five hours. Set the kettle aside, and when nearly cold draw off the skin of the ham and cover with cracker crumbs and about three tablespoonfuls of sugar. Place in the oven in a baking pan for thirty or forty minutes. When cold, slice thin and lay temptingly on large white plates. Cost of a ham weighing ten pounds, $1.20. Sales at thirty cents a pound, $3.00. Deduct for shrinkage in boiling and waste in trimming one and one-half pounds, forty-five cents. Profits, $1.35.

60. Choice Tongue. – If successful with ham, you can try a little tongue. Soak over night and cook for four or five hours. Throw into cold water and peel off the skin. Cut evenly and arrange attractively on plates, garnishing with sprigs of parsley. Cooked meats should be placed in the show window under transparent gauze. In hot weather a cake of ice beneath will greatly tempt the appetite of the passer-by.

61. Artificial Honey. – Where honey is high priced, make the following: Five pounds white sugar, two pounds water, gradually bring to a boil, and skim well. When cool, add one pound bees’ honey and four drops of peppermint. There is a large profit in this where the customer is not particular about the quality; but if a better article is desired add less water and more real honey.

You can add a number of other tea-dishes as you learn what will sell. A thing that is salable in one community is often not so in another. You must be guided by the taste of the locality, and when a dish does not sell well try another.

Section 3. Pastry

Suppose you now try a little pastry. If you can make a superior article, you will have a ready sale, but it is often difficult to introduce the goods. It is sometimes a good plan to donate a cake to a fair, cutting the loaf into very thin slices, and giving them to leading ladies who may be present, superintending the matter yourself, and advertising that you will take orders.

62. Angel Cake. – The whites of eleven eggs, one and a half cupfuls of granulated sugar, measured after being sifted four times, one cupful of flour measured after being sifted four times, one teaspoonful of cream tartar, and one of vanilla extract. Beat the whites to a stiff froth and beat the sugar into the eggs. Add the seasoning and flour, stirring quickly and lightly. Beat until ready to put the mixture into the oven. Use a pan that has little legs on the top comers so that when the pan is turned upside down on the table after the baking, a current of air will pass under and over it. Bake for forty minutes in a moderate oven. Do not grease the pan. This cake should sell for $1, or, cut in twenty pieces, at five cents each.

63. Dominos. – If you are located near a schoolhouse or on a street where many children pass, you can do a big business in dominos. Bake a sponge cake in a rather thin sheet. Cut into small oblong pieces the shape of a domino. Frost the top and sides. When the frosting is hard, draw the black lines and make the dots with a small brush that has been dipped in melted chocolate. They will sell “like hot cakes.”

64. Soft Gingerbread. – All children like this. Here is an excellent kind: Six cupfuls of flour, three of molasses, one of cream, one of lard or butter, two eggs, one teaspoonful of saleratus, and two of ginger. You can sell this, when light and warm, almost as fast as you can make it.

65. Doughnuts. – These, too, are tempting to children. Four eggs, one half-pound sugar, two ounces butter, one pound flour, boiled milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a few drops of some essence. Beat the eggs and sugar and melt the butter and stir it in; then add a pound of flour and enough boiled milk to make a rather stiff dough; flavor with nutmeg, cinnamon, and a few drops of some essence; cut into shapes with tumbler or knife, and fry brown in hot lard. When done, sift on fine sugar. Made fresh every day and placed temptingly in the window, they will sell fast.

After you are well established, you should sell at least two dozen doughtnuts at a profit of a penny apiece, two cards of gingerbread at seven cents profit each, and three dozen dominos at a profit of five cents a dozen. Total profit per day on three last articles in this section, fifty-three cents.

Section 4. Sweetmeats and Confectionery

If you find that children are your best customers, you may cater yet further to their taste. Remember that your success depends upon your keeping choice articles. It is surprising how children find out the best candy stores, and how quick they are to discern between good and bad stock. By making your own goods, you can sell a little cheaper than the dealers who have to buy.

66. Walnut Candy. – This is something which all children like. Put the meats of the nuts on the bottom of tins previously greased to the depth of half an inch. Boil two pounds of brown sugar, one half pint of water, and one gill of molasses, until a portion of the mass hardens when it cools. Pour the hot candy on the meats and allow it to remain until hard.

67. Chocolate Caramels. – A favorite with girls. Boil a quart of best molasses until it hardens when put in water. Before removing from the fire, add four ounces of fine chocolate. Pour a thin layer into tin trays slightly greased. When it hardens a little cut into squares. You can sell these as low as thirty cents a pound, and still make a good profit.

68. Peppermint Creams. – Take one pound of sugar, seven teaspoonfuls of water, and one teaspoonful of essence of peppermint. Work together into a stiff paste, roll, cut, and stamp with a little wooden stamp such as are bought for individual butter pats.

69. Molasses Candy (White). – All children want molasses candy. Two pounds of white sugar, one pint of sugar-house syrup, and one pint of best molasses. Boil together until the mass hardens when dropped in cold water, and work in the usual manner. Sell by the stick, or in broken pieces by the pound, half, and quarter.

70. Blanched Almonds. – Shell the nuts; pour over them boiling water. Let them stand in the water a minute, and then throw them into cold water. Rub between the hands. The nuts will be white as snow, and, if placed prominently in the window, very tempting. Sell by the ounce.

71. Fig Paste. – This always has a good sale. Chop a pound of figs and boil in a pint of water until reduced to a soft pulp. Strain through a fine sieve, add three pounds of sugar, and evaporate over boiling water until the paste becomes quite stiff. Form the paste into a square mass, and divide in small pieces with a thin-bladed knife. Roll the pieces in fine sugar, and pack in little wooden boxes.

72. Fig Layer Candy. – One half-pound of drum figs, one pound of finest white sugar, white of one egg, one tablespoonful of cold water. Make sugar, egg, and water into a cream, and mold like bread. After figs are stemmed and chopped, roll a fig to one fourth of an inch in thickness. Place the rolled fig between two layers of cream, pass rolling-pin over lightly, and cut into squares of any desired size. Delicious, if well-made, and always salable.

It is astonishing what vast sums accumulate from the children’s pennies spent for candy and sweetmeats. Many cases could be given of persons who have kept small stores, and been supported solely by the little streams of coppers and nickels. Get the children’s confidence, learn their names, always have a bright, kind word for them, and bait your hook occasionally with little gifts of sweets. They will flock to you like bees to a flower-garden.

Section 5. Preserves, Pickles, and Jellies

We put these sweets and sours into one group because they sell best when in proximity. Almost everything depends upon the way they are put up. If the fruit shows artistically through the glass jars, or the pickles are put up attractively in cute little bottles with fresh-painted labels, he must be a stoic indeed who can pass your show-window without a coveting glance. Here are a few of the most popular things in this line:

73. Orange Marmalade. – Take equal weights of sour oranges and sugar. Grate the yellow rind from one fourth of the oranges. Cut all the fruit in halves, pick out the pulp and free it of seeds. Drain off the juice and put it on to boil with the sugar. When it comes to a boil, skim it, and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes; then put in the pulp and grated rind, and boil fifteen minutes longer. Put away in jelly tumblers. Sell large glasses for twenty-five cents; small, for fifteen.

74. Brandied Peach. – The Morris whites are the best. Take off the skins with boiling water. To each pound of fruit allow one pound of sugar, and a half-pint of water to three pounds of sugar. When the syrup is boiling hot put in the peaches, and as fast as they cook take them out carefully and spread on platters. When cool put them in jars and fill up these with syrup, using one-half syrup and one-half pale brandy. This is a very choice brand, and will only pay you where you have customers who are not sparing of their money.

75. Ox-heart Cherry. – Of showy fruits, none can excel this. To each pound of cherries, allow one-third of a pound of sugar. Put the sugar in the kettle with half a pint of water to three pounds of sugar. Stir it until it is dissolved. When boiling, add the cherries, and cook three minutes. Put up in jars that can be sold for from twenty-five to fifty cents.

76. Pound Pear. – They hardly weigh a pound a piece, but they look as if they do with their great white bulks pressed up against the sides of the transparent glass. Take the largest kind, Bartlett, Seckel, or any that have a delicious flavor. Pare the fruit, cut in halves, and throw in cold water. Use one pound of sugar for three of fruit, and one quart of water for three pounds of sugar. When the syrup is boiling take the pears from the water and drop into the syrup. Cook until they can be pierced easily with a silver fork. Fill the jars with fruit, and fill up to the brim with syrup, using a small strainer in the funnel, in order that the syrup may look clear. Sell good-sized jars for fifty cents.

77. Grape Jelly. – Jellies in little tumblers take up small room, and they can be grouped in artistic shapes. Here is a good grape: Mash fruit in a kettle, put over the fire, and cook until thoroughly done. Drain through a sieve, but do not press through. To each pint of juice, allow one pound of sugar. Boil rapidly for five minutes. Add the sugar, and boil rapidly three minutes more.

78. Sweet Pickles – (Apple, Pear, or Peach). For six pounds of fruit, use three of sugar, five dozen cloves and a pint of vinegar. Into each apple, pear, or peach, stick two cloves. Have the syrup hot, and cook until tender. Put up in attractive little jars with colored labels. Jars should sell for twenty-five cents.

79. Chow-Chow. – Here is a very taking kind: Take large red-peppers, remove the contents, and fill them with chopped pickles. The red of the peppers against the white of the glass gives a very pretty appearance. Small bottles that can be sold cheap will be the most popular.

80. Pickled Walnuts. – Pick out the nuts as nearly whole as possible, and steep in strong brine for a week, then bottle, add spice, and fill with vinegar boiling hot. Put up in very small jars. Have a jar from which to give samples if the dish is not common in the place.

There are a vast number of other fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which you can use as custom shall demand. If you grow your own fruit and do your own work, the result is nearly all profit. If you have to buy the fruit, the selling-price should be such as to give one third profit. This is the per cent. which all manufacturers expect.

Section 6. Toilet Articles

These have a perennial sale. They are not confined to any season or age. Most of them, especially the French makes, come high, but they are composed of a few simple ingredients, and can be made by any person of ordinary skill. Here are a few of the best selling:

81. Rose Oil. – Heat dried rose-leaves in an earthenware pipkin, the leaves being covered with olive-oil, and keep hot for several hours. The oil will extract both odor and color. Strain, and put in little cut-glass bottles.

82. Cologne Water. – Take one pint of alcohol, twelve drops each of bergamot, lemon, neroli, sixty drops of lavender, sixty drops of bergamot, sixty drops of essence of lemon, and sixty drops of orange-water, shake well and cork.

83. French Face Powder. – Poudre de chipre one and one-half pounds, eau (water) of millefleurs one and one-half drachms. Put up in small cut-glass bottles and give it a French name. Poudre de Millefleurs will do.

84. Night-Blooming Cereus. – This is a very delicate and fragrant perfume. Spirit of rose 4 ounces, essence of jasmine 4 ounces, tincture of tonka 2 ounces, tincture of civet 2 ounces, tincture of benzoin 4 ounces. Cost $1.65 per pint. Put up in half-gill bottles at fifty cents each, $4.00. Profit, $2.35.

In selling expensive perfumery, remember that the glass is cheaper than the contents, and you should therefore select thick bottles with small cubical space. Tie pretty colored ribbons around the necks of the bottles, and put them, four or six together, in attractive boxes with the lids removed. You must in every way court the patronage of the ladies, and you can in some cases well afford to give a bottle to the leader of a social set with the understanding that she recommend it to her friends.

Section 7. Varnishes and Polishes

With your plants, meats, preserves, candies, and perfumery, you have already got much beyond your show-window. You now have a “department store” on a small scale, and as you make the goods yourself you ought to be making money. There are some things you can add for which the demand will not be great, but then the cost of making is small. Besides, the goods, put up in bright tin boxes with colored labels and built up in pyramids on your shelves, will give your store an artistic and attractive appearance. Here are a few things that might profitably occupy your spare moments:

85. Stove Blacking. – Take half a pound of black lead finely powdered, and mix with the whites of three eggs well-beaten; then dilute it with sour beer or porter till it becomes as thin as shoe-blacking; after stirring it, set it over hot coals to simmer for twenty minutes; then, after it has become cold, box and label.

86. Shoe Blacking. – Mix six parts of fine bone-black, twenty-eight of syrup or four of sugar, three of train-oil, and one of sulphuric acid. Let the mixture stand for eight hours, then add with vigorous and constant stirring four parts of the decoction of tan, eighteen of bone-black, and three of sulphuric acid, and pour the compound into a little tin boxes. Cost, one cent per box; sell for five cents.

87. Furniture Cream. – Take eight parts of white wax, two of resin, and one pint of true Venice turpentine. Melt at a gentle heat, and pour the warm mass into a stone jar with six parts of rectified oil of turpentine. After twenty-four hours it should have the consistency of soft butter. Sell in small ten-cent boxes.

88. Leather Polish. – Beat the yolks of two eggs and the white of one; mix a tablespoonful of gin and a teaspoonful of sugar; thicken it with ivory black, add it to the eggs, and use as common blacking. This will give a fine polish to harnesses and leather cushions, and also may be used as a dressing for ladies’ shoes.

These are the varnishes and polishes that sell the most readily, but you must not think they will sell without advertisement, recommendation, and display. Label them attractively, and tell just what they will do. It is well to have a little hand press so that you can print your own labels, and also some marking-ink for posters. Use ink freely; and, if you can get the recommendation of some townsman who has tried one of your varnishes or polishes, give it a large display.

Section 8. Soaps and Starches

Soaps are easily made and very profitable. Several firms have made fortunes in soap during the last few years. You can make just as good an article in your own home and reap all the profits. With starches, take pains to let your customers know that you have different ones for different kinds of goods. Many use the same starch for all kinds of washing. You must show people that your starches are made especially for various kinds of garments, and that the effect will not be so good if the wrong starch is used, or one kind applied indiscriminately to all kinds of goods.

89. Poland Starch. – Mix flour and cold water until the mass will pour easily, then stir it into a pot of boiling water, and let it boil five or six minutes, stirring frequently. A little spermaceti will make it smoother. When cold, put in pasteboard boxes and sell cheap.

90. Glue Starch. – (For calicoes.) Boil a piece of glue, four inches square, in three quarts of water. Put it in a well-corked bottle, and sell for a little more than Poland.

91. Gum Arabic Starch. – (For lawns and white muslin.) Pound to a powder two ounces of fine, white gum-arabic; put it into a pitcher, and pour a pint or more of boiling water upon it, and cover it well. Let it stand all night, and in the morning pour it carefully from the dregs into a clean bottle, and cork it tight. Recommend this to your customers, and tell them that a tablespoonful of this stirred into a pint of starch made in the ordinary manner will restore lawns to almost their original freshness.

92. Starch Luster. – This is a substance which, when added to starch, gives the cloth not only a high polish, but a dazzling whiteness. To produce this result, a little piece the size of a copper cent is added to half a pound of starch and boiled with it for two or three minutes. Now we will give you the whole secret. The substance is nothing more than stearine, paraffine, or wax, sometimes colored by a slight admixture of ultramarine blue. You can buy it in quantities for a trifle, and sell it in little balls or wafers at a profit of 500 per cent.

93. Hard Soap. – Five pails of soft soap, two pounds of salt and one pound of resin. Simmer together and when thoroughly fused turn out in shallow pans so as to be easily cut. This costs little more than the labor and by being able to undersell rivals you should have a monopoly in soap.

94. Savon d’Amande. – This is a celebrated French toilet soap. The recipe is French suet nine parts, olive oil one part, saponified by caustic soda. Toilet soaps are also made of white tallow, olive, almond and palm-oil, soaps either alone or combined in various proportions and scented. The perfume is melted in a bright copper pan by the heat of a water bath.

Section 9. Soft Drinks

You may now if you have a counter try a few soft drinks. A soda fountain is expensive and perhaps would not pay at this stage, but you might try it when you have more capital and customers. First try. —

95. Root Beer. – Get a bottle of the extract, and make it according to the directions. Cost of ten gallons extract and sugar, $1. Put up in pint bottles at five cents a bottle $4. Profit, $3.

96. Ginger Pop. – Put into an earthen pot two pounds of loaf sugar, two ounces of cream tartar, two ounces of best ginger bruised, and two lemons cut into slices. Pour over them three gallons of boiling water, when lukewarm, toast a slice of bread, spread it thickly with yeast and put it into the liquor. Mix with it also the whites of two eggs and their crushed shells. Let it stand till next morning. Then strain and bottle. It will be ready for use in three or four days. Profits about the same as the last.

97. Lemonade and Orangeade. – Get juicy fruit, and allow one orange or lemon to a glass. The tumblers for orangeade should be smaller than those for lemonade. Profits about two and one-half cents a glass.

Have your counter for drinks as near the door as you can. Keep your bottles on ice. Make your lemonade to order, and let it be known that all your beer is home-brewed. Ask your patrons if they like it, and take kindly any suggestions they may make. Let them know you want to please them.

Section 10. Dairy and Other Farm Produce

If you live in the country, or if your grounds are large enough, you can add immensely to your profits by keeping a cow, a pig, some poultry, and a few hives of bees. You will now need help – a boy to milk your cow, run on errands, and deliver goods; and a girl to help you in the work-room and to assist in the store.

98, Golden Butter; 99, Fresh Eggs; 100, Sweet Milk; 101, Sparkling Honey; 102, New Cheese; and 103, Clean Lard, are among the attractions and the sources of revenue you can add to your already prosperous business. Churn your butter till it is entirely free of the milk, salt it well and put it up in tempting balls, rolls or pats. A little finely-strained carrot-juice will give it a golden color without any disagreeable taste. For poultry, the Wyandottes and Plymouth Rocks are the best year-round layers. Have a sign “Eggs Laid Yesterday,” or “This Morning’s Eggs.” Sell milk by the glass, pint or quart; only be sure it is always fresh. Get a small cheese-press, and if you find a good sale for your cheese, milk, and butter, add to your stock of cows. Find out which of the three dairy products pays the best, and work accordingly. Invite people to taste your good things, and tell them that everything is homemade and fresh. Bees are perhaps the most profitable things in the world, as they entail no expense after the first outfit. Have honey both strained and in the comb as you learn the wants of your patrons. The pig will keep you in meat a large portion of the year, besides supplying to your store a limited quantity of nice white-leaf lard, which should be sold in little bright tin pails.

104. White Pork. – If you do not care for swine’s flesh, you can sell it for from twelve to twenty cents a pound. People are glad to buy fresh-killed meat and to pay a good price for it when their ordinary purchases have been many days slaughtered, and often freighted a thousand miles.

105. Poultry to Order. – Do not keep your hens beyond the second year, as they are not so good layers after that age. Have always a stock of fat fowls ready for market. Spring Chickens. Here is another line in which you can invest. A chick costs in feed about twenty-five cents for the season, and they sell readily for a dollar a pair.

Section 11. Garden Vegetables

If you have a small garden, you can supply your store with fresh vegetables during the season. It is very important that they should be fresh. Having your own garden, you can guarantee that quality to your customers. Take orders for the following day so that the vegetables may come straight from the garden into the hands of the consumer. Here are the six which grocers say sell for the largest profit.

106. Cut-to-Order Asparagus. – Asparagus is at least one-half better when newly cut. Choose the white variety, and tie in small bunches. Sell at fifteen cents a bunch.

107. Quick Market Strawberries. – Pick them fresh every morning. Put them in the usual boxes, and set them on a stand in front of the store. Have one or two large ones on the top of each box, and lay around them two or three strawberry leaves wet with dew.

108. Round Tomatoes. – If possible, have them so fine and large that five will fill a quart box. Sold even as low as five cents a box they are very profitable. This is at the rate of a penny apiece, and a thrifty tomato plant will bear fifty.

109. Pint Peas. – Peas in the pod are not attractive, but very young peas when shelled and put in little bright tin pails are irresistible. The very sight of them tickles the palate. Rise early, and pick and shell a pint of peas. If they do not sell, you can have them for your own dinner. Do not keep them overnight, as the succulent quality is soon lost after shelling.

110. String Beans. – Nothing easier to raise, nothing easier to sell. You can raise a bushel on a square rod if properly managed. Sell at fifteen cents a half-peck.

111. Green Corn. – Sell at twenty-five cents a dozen ears. Be careful to pick before the kernels become large. Have a notice, “Corn Picked to Order.”

We have found out from the grocers what garden products sell the best. Now, suppose you have only a single rod of ground (about the size of a large room), and want to know how to plant it to the best advantage. Below will be found a comparative table of what, under generous cultivation, may be expected of each of the above in the way of hard cash from a single rod of soil.

Asparagus (40 bunches at 15 cents a bunch), $6.00; strawberries (33 baskets at 15 cents a basket), $4.95; tomatoes (150 quarts at 5 cents a quart), $7.50; peas (16 pints at 25 cents a pint), $4.00; beans (1 bushel at 15 cents half-peck), $1.20; corn (8 dozen ears at 25 cents a dozen), $2.00.

If you have twenty square rods instead of one, your revenue from your garden may be increased by that multiple, and you will have an opportunity to try all the above sources of profit. Find out what fruits and vegetables sell best in your neighborhood, and plant accordingly. And remember that the key to your success in garden produce is the single word fresh.

Section 12. School Supplies

There are a number of articles in use in our schools which can be made at home. Once let it be known that you can make and sell as good a quality as the imported article, and at a cheaper price, and you will have the patronage of all the schools in your vicinity. Advertise wisely, and in cases where the trustees furnish the things, make a low bid for the entire school supply.

112. Book Covers. – Save all your paper bags, iron them out smoothly, and make them into book covers. Sell them at three cents apiece, or take the contract to cover all the books in the school at two cents apiece.

113. Artificial Slates. – Take forty-one parts of sand, four parts of lampblack, four parts of boiled linseed or cottonseed oil. Boil thoroughly, and reduce the mixture by adding spirits of turpentine so that it may be easily applied to a thin piece of pasteboard. Give three coats, drying between each coat. Finish by rubbing smooth with a piece of cotton waste soaked in spirits of turpentine. You have an excellent slate or memorandum book, which may be sold for ten cents. Use a slate pencil. Made in large quantities, these are very profitable.

114. Cheap Ink. – Boil one and a half pounds of logwood with sufficient residue water to leave a residue of two and a half quarts. When cold, add one and a half drams of yellow bichromate of potash, and stir thoroughly, and the ink is ready for use. The above will fill twenty-five large ink bottles, which, at five cents apiece, come to $1.25. Cost, 25 to 35 cents.

115. School Bag. – Take a piece of cheap white linen and make it into a pretty bag, with a strap to go over the shoulder. Have a colored stamp to put on the initials of the purchaser. Sell for twenty-five cents.

116. Pen Wiper. – Take any cheap material, and cut in three circles of different sizes. Scallop the edges, and stitch together at the center. If the circles are of different color as well as size, it will be attractive to the children, and still more so if the smallest circle has an initial letter. Sell for five cents.

117. Children’s Luncheon. – Thousands of parents would rather pay a trifling sum than be put to the trouble of providing and preparing lunch. Make a little repast cheap and neat. One large or two small sandwiches, a small dish of jelly or a tart, a pickle or a piece of cake. Put in a collapsible paper box, and tie with red or blue ribbon. Cost about six or seven cents. Sell for ten cents.

Section 13. Christmas Presents

You can do well with these if you are supple with your fingers and nimble with your tongue. Learn what artistic designs are becoming popular, and keep abreast of the latest fads. The fabric called denim is coming more into use every year, and as it is very cheap, and comes in all colors, it is especially suited for making, covering, and adorning all kinds of household handiwork. A ramble through the large metropolitan stores with a request to see the various lines of goods used for trimming and ornamenting will astonish you. The endless varieties of silks, satins, velvets, plushes, linens, laces, feathers, and so forth, should suggest to a lively mind infinite possibilities in the way of made-up articles of market value. Our list below must be taken only as samples of what a fertile mind and ingenious fingers can accomplish.

118. Sofa Pillow. – Take a piece of India silk of different colors, and let them all taper to a common center upon which a monogram is worked. Relieve the bareness of the white by a running vine and morning glories. A pillow of this kind which cost $3 sold for $8. The varieties of the sofa pillow are almost endless. Get a book of designs and learn to make the Organdy, Butterfly, Duck, Clover, Daisy, Cretonne, Yacht, Mull, Poppy, and many others.

119. Jewel Tray. – Cut a circle of delicate écru linen twenty-two inches in circumference, and sew a piece of bonnet wire around it, notching or looping it so as to give an escaloped edge. Have a pretty little motto in the center, and fill the remaining space with snowdrops worked in ivory white, each tiny petal tipped with pale green, and with a long green stem. When properly worked, this is very pretty, and ought to command a good price.

120. American Flag. – Make it five feet in length by three in width, and smaller flags in the same proportion. There should be seven stripes of red bunting, six of white, and a field of blue. On this field stitch forty-five stars of white. Face the inside of the flag with a piece of strong canvas for the admission of the pole. If the stars are of silk, the price should be at least twice that of linen.

121. Hair-Pin Case. – Cut a piece of fine white duck in the shape of a square envelope and embroider upon the flap any simple design in wash silk. Close with button and buttonhole. Sell for fifty cents.

122. Chair Cushion. – Take blue denim with dark and light shades happily combined. Let the tint of pale blue be appliqued on, and then worked in different shades of this color with rope floss in long and short stitch. The back may be of plain denim unadorned.

123. Lamp Shade. – You can get a dozen skeleton frames for a few cents, and French crêpe paper which costs little, and your own cultivated taste and deft fingers will do the rest. A cheap kaleidoscope will suggest an infinite number of designs. One lady made an elegant shade at a cost of $2.50, and sold it for $6.00.

124. Book-Mark. – Silk, worsted, and two hours of spare time will give you a pretty book-mark which should sell for fifty cents, at a cost of making (time not reckoned) of only fifteen cents.

125. Handy Work-Box. – Take a pasteboard box and line with denim. Include a tiny pin-cushion, scissors-case, thimble-holder, needle-book, flap, and spool wires.

126. Pin-Cushion. – Always popular, but the form changes every season. Cover with silk or satin, and overlay with strips of fine linen embroidered in festoons of tiny blossoms. Border with ruffle of lace, and put small rosettes of baby ribbon at the corners.

127. Catch-Bag. – A convenient receptacle for laundry, schoolbooks, shoes, and many other articles. It should be in envelope form, the dimensions eighteen by twelve. The material may be white linen, upon which you should work a gold border. Make an attachment for hanging on the wall.

128. Court-Plaster Case. – Cut two circles of celluloid two inches in diameter, and four other circles of thin drawing-paper for inside leaves. In these little pockets place pieces of court-plaster, pink, white and black, cut into strips or squares, and held flat and stationary by having their comers thrust into slits cut in the paper. Punch holes in the left side of the case, and tie with baby-ribbon. Paint or work on outside cover a design of burrs with “I cling to thee,” or a design of beggar-ticks with “I stick to thee.”

129. Postage-Stamp Holder. – Same as above except that the shape is square.

130. Photograph Frame. – Take a piece of stout pasteboard and turn down the corners. Cut the inside to the proper size, and stitch a piece of chamois over the pasteboard. Tie bits of colored ribbon on the corners. Sell for twenty-five cents.

131. Match-Safe. – Cover a tin box of any shape with one of the lesser inflammable materials such as chamois, and on the front attach a piece of match-paper. Sell for ten or fifteen cents.

132. Wall-Pocket. – Take bamboo sticks or thin strips of wood, and glue them together in the form of a pocket-frame. The sticks should be about two inches apart and the outer lattice-work a little lower than the inner. Wind colored ribbons around the sticks, and have a circular head-piece for attachment to the wall.

133. Glove-Box. – (Easter present). Cover a flat pasteboard box with pale gray linen or delicate blue. Work a spray of passion-flowers on the top, inclosing some suitable motto.

Christmas presents should be in the store at least three weeks before the holidays. As many donors like to attach the initials of the recipient to the present, have prettily worked letters for that purpose, and charge ten cents a letter. Be careful to inform all possible customers of this arrangement, as many will be attracted by that feature. Call attention to this class of goods when your patrons are buying other kinds of your wares, and be always eager to show your latest designs. Remember that taste in this department is as important as the word fresh in Section 10.

Section 14. Miscellaneous Articles

Here are a few other things to complete the list of one hundred which you can make in your own home. You will discover many others for yourself as your trade increases, and your friends make suggestions. The secret of success is to find out what people want, and then give them a better and cheaper article than they can get elsewhere. You will find your customers’ wants changing according to the season or the newest fad. Things which you expected to sell will often be left on your hands. You must be prepared to take advantage of this. Drop the price when the demand falls, and always have in your mind some new article of home manufacture to take the place of that whose popularity is waning. Keep eyes and ears strained for the newest thing. As it was said of a certain burglar that he never saw a lock without the thought, “How can I pick it?” so you should never witness the sale of any article without the query, “How can I make it?” The following are easily made, and some of them very profitable:

134. Hot Gems. – If you can work up a demand for hot gems, you can make a good profit. Take a pint each of flour and milk, an egg, and half a teaspoonful of salt. Beat the egg until light, add the milk and salt to it, and beat gradually into the flour. Bake twenty minutes in hot gem-pans. The quantities given will make a dozen gems. Notice should be given of the hour of the day when they may be expected to be fresh from the oven. Charge twenty-five cents a dozen.

135. Sliced Watermelon. – Nothing so delights the heart of a boy. Cut a large ripe melon into half-slices, rather thick, and lay them on ice in the show window. Cost of melon and ice, fifty cents. Twenty slices at five cents each, $1. Profit, one-half.

136. Toothsome Pies. – Roll two strips of paste for the upper and lower crusts. Place the latter in position after moistening the plate, and fill with the prepared material already sweetened and seasoned. Lay on the upper crust, and make a little slit in the center. Put in hot oven, close draft after fifteen minutes, and bake from fifty minutes to one hour. Charge twenty-five cents for good deep pies.

137. Ice Cream. – You can do well with this in warm weather, if you have a room suitable for serving. One pint of sugar, one of water, and three of cream, the yolks of five eggs and a large tablespoonful of the flavoring extract. Boil the sugar and water twenty-five minutes. Beat the eggs with one fourth of a teaspoonful of salt. Place the basin of boiling syrup in another of boiling water, and, stirring the yolks of the eggs into the syrup, beat rapidly for three minutes. Take the basin from the fire, place it in a pan of ice water, and beat until cold. Add the cream and extract, and, placing the mixture in the freezer, pack around with ice, alternating with thin layers of salt. Turn the crank until the cream is frozen hard.

138. Pork and Beans. – You can make a large profit on pork and beans in places where there is a demand for them. Both are cheap, and you can make a handsome profit on a dish selling for thirty-five cents, the dish to be returned. It is well if you can to make a bargain to supply families once a week on particular days. This dish takes well in all parts of New England.

139. Tomato Ketchup. – Raising your own tomatoes, you can make it at a trifling cost, and reap a profit at ten cents for small bottles. For twelve ripe, peeled tomatoes, take two large onions, four green peppers, and chop fine. Add two tablespoonfuls of salt, two of brown sugar, two of ginger, one of cinnamon, one of mustard, a nutmeg, grated; and four cupfuls of vinegar. Boil all together for three hours, stirring frequently, and bottle while hot.

140. Mince Meat. – Many housekeepers prefer to buy the preparation rather than to be at the trouble of making it. Lean beef, two pounds; beef suet, one pound; apples, five pounds; seeded raisins, two pounds; currants, two pounds; citron, three-fourths of a pound; pounded mace and pounded cinnamon, two tablespoonfuls each; one of grated nutmeg; one each of cloves and allspice; brown sugar two and one-half pounds; sherry wine, one quart; brandy, one pint. Put up in three-pound cans. The compound should make six cans, and you should charge seventy-five cents a can for so choice a product. You can reduce the expense, if your customers wish a cheaper article.

141. Dried Apples. – If you have a few apple trees, you will often find it more profitable to dry for future sale than to sell the green fruit. Pare, core, and slice. Lay the slices in shallow pans or on clean boards, and expose to the air until thoroughly dried. Then pack and store for the winter market. You should get at least ten cents a pound.

142. Peanuts. – No risk of loss on these for they will always sell. Buy from a shipper or wholesale grocer a bag of peanuts and roast them in the oven until they are a fine brown, taking care not to burn. Profits in a bag of peanuts selling at five cents, one-half pint, 100 per cent.

143. Cigarettes. – Roll a pinch of tobacco in a piece of white paper and scent with any agreeable perfume. More profit than in cigars.

144. Tallow Candles. – Still used in the country, and to some extent by poor people in the city. Take beef and mutton suet in the proportion of one to two. Melt, and fill tin molds in which the wick has been previously inserted. The cost is little beyond the work. Charge twenty-five cents per dozen.

145. Lung Preserver. – (Rock and Rye). Here is the secret of this popular remedy for coughs, colds and lung troubles. Rye whisky, three gallons; syrup, made of rock candy, one gallon. Cost of whiskey and syrup, $3.50. Put up in pint bottles at fifty cents each, $16. Profits, $12.50, or nearly 300 per cent.

146. Poison Killer. – You may not sell much of this, but it is a useful article to have in the house, and will keep indefinitely. Buy a quantity of powder of aristol, and put it in small pepper-boxes, or in any box with a perforated lid, holding a few ounces. Dust the affected part freely with this, and the effect on the poisoned flesh will be magical. Use for any inflammation. Advertise it in placards.

147. Mucilage. – Dissolve gum-arabic in water until the whole is of the consistency of cream, and keep it from contact with the air. Add a few drops of sweet oil to prevent it from souring. The cost is almost nothing. You can sell it at five cents a bottle.

148. Pop Corn. – Use a large popper, and when the corn comes out white and hot, add a little molasses to make it adhere, and flavor with some popular extract. Mold it in balls, rectangles, or in any other fancy shape. A bushel of shelled corn which costs a dollar will make 125 balls. These at five cents apiece come to $6.25.

This completes the list of one hundred articles for your store. Observe that they are all made at home, and for that reason the profits are from 50 to 500 per cent., while in the ordinary way of buying from the wholesaler the storekeeper has to be satisfied with from 10 to 20 per cent. You will discover for yourself many other articles which can be made at home and sold at a profit, and you will not confine yourself to homemade goods, but will handle anything for which there is a demand whether you can make it yourself or not. Of course, if you make all the above goods, you will need much help, the cost of which will diminish somewhat the profits, but the design is that you begin on a modest scale, at first doing all the manufacturing yourself, and call in assistance as your business and capital grow. In writing this chapter the author has contemplated a lady as keeping a store of this kind, but a gentleman can do much of the work as well, and some sections of it better. Perhaps the ideal store would be that kept by husband and wife with growing children to assist. Now let us have the experience of a lady who has tried our plan.

Mrs. J- G- says: “By the death of my husband I was left alone with three children, Wilhelm fifteen, Gertrude thirteen, and Egbert ten. I had no means, though, fortunately, my little place in the suburban town of T- was free of debt. It consisted of a neat house and three acres of land. Having a fondness for plants, I cultivated them in curious ways, while keeping my little family together by taking in sewing. One day a lady who was spending the summer in T- called and inquired what I would take for a pea vine which was growing in a tumbler of water. I was surprised, as I had not thought of making merchandise of my plant pets. She purchased a number of pretty little odd things of vegetable life with which I had amused myself, and suggested that I might earn something by cultivating rare forms of plants. It was a new idea to me. I had not thought there was any money in what had been to me only a pastime, but I increased the number of my plant curiosities, and the lady and her friends bought them all.

“Then my friend said to me, ‘Why don’t you keep a Home Store? You have so much taste I think you would do nicely?’ ‘And pray what is a Home Store?’ I inquired. ‘Oh, it’s a store where the things are all made at home.’ ‘But I have no capital.’ ‘You need no capital. See, the things are all made at home. Begin with a few tea dishes.’ So I bought a ham, sliced it thin, and laid some sprigs of parsley around it. I also made some artificial honey from a recipe in an old cook book. With the money I thus earned, I had my window enlarged into a show-window, and put in a variety of vegetables from my garden, taking care they should be strictly fresh every day. I had such success that, at the suggestion of my lady patron, I began to make a great many other things-pastry, preserves, sweetmeats, and toilet articles. I also purchased one hundred fowls, and served my customers with fresh eggs. My trade grew so that I decided to have a real store, and so, at an expense of about $50, I had my two front rooms made into one and fitted up with shelves and counters. I purchased a cow and a pig on credit, and also two or three hives of bees. The people seemed to appreciate my fresh eggs, milk, butter and honey, and I soon paid all my debts and branched out in several other directions in the way of homemade goods. Hitherto, my three children had afforded me all the help I needed, but now I found it necessary to employ a cheap male laborer to look after my garden, orchard, cow, pig, and poultry, as well as to assist in making some of my goods. I made a great variety of things as new suggestions came to me almost daily, and also, as my customers called for them, I bought what I could not well make myself. Now, after three years’ experience, I think I have the most profitable store of its size that can be found anywhere. Here is my account for last year:

“Deduct from the above the wages of laborer at $20 per month, $240, and I have left $858.66 as net profit for my year’s work. The fruit for the preserves and pies was raised on the place, and I was under no expense for tin and paper boxes, these being collected from the houses of my friends. It will be seen that nearly one-third of the sales of my ‘Home Store’ were of purchased goods on which the profit were only 15 per cent., but so large was the profit on the homemade goods that the total sales were at the gratifying advance of 80 per cent. Besides, I have had the living of my family and hired help. The expense for meats not furnished on the place, and for groceries not kept in the store, together with that for clothes, taxes, and sundries, was $316.05. Thus, I have paid all my expenses, and saved $540 for a rainy day. Pretty good, don’t you think, for a woman, and a novice at that? Of course, I have worked hard, sometimes as many as fifteen hours a day, but I have enjoyed it, and think I am on the way to a snug little fortune. Others with more talents, and under more favorable circumstances, I have no doubt could do much better.

“The secrets of my success, if you ask me, are: First, the trading instinct, or the knowing what, where, and when to buy. (I never let myself get out of a stock article). Second, courtesy to all – to the little barefoot colored boy just the same as to the grand madam. Third, economy, both in my family expenses, buying only what I need, and in my store, using in other ways that which will not sell in the original form, throwing nothing away unless it is spoiled and even that giving, as a last resort, to my pig and poultry; and fourth, hard work, making and selling with my own hands everything I can, and carefully superintending everything I cannot.”

Chapter VI
Money in the home acre

Money at Home – What a Single Acre Will Do – Gold in the Soil – How a Dike Made a Klondike – $1,000 at Your Back Door – Nickels in Pickles! Livings in Pickings! – A Fortune in a Fat Slice of Earth – A Great (Grate) Way to Make Money.

There are multitudes of people who have a single acre of ground which could be made to yield much profit if they knew how to handle it. Others have an half or a quarter of an acre; not enough, perhaps, to give them a support, but which would add very materially to their income if properly cultivated. In this chapter we tell you what to do with the “home acre,” with examples of what others have done with it.

149. Money in Pears. – Do you know that one acre of the best yielding pear trees will bring more profit than a five-hundred acre farm without a twentieth of the care or capital?

150. Greenbacks in Greenings. – It is a fact that forty apple trees of the R. H. Greening variety on a single acre have yielded a crop worth $400.

151. Plums of Gold. – A widow has in her garden twelve plum trees from which she regularly receives $60 a year.

152. The Raspberry Acre. – “There are repeated instances of $400 and even $600 being made clear from a single acre of raspberries.” See Morris’ “Ten Acres Enough.”

153. Profits in Big Peaches. – When ordinary peaches were selling at 25 cents a bushel, a grower received $2 a bushel. This is how he did it. When the fruit was as large as a hickory nut, he employed a large force of laborers and picked off more than one-half the fruit. The rest ripened early, grew large, and were of excellent quality. His net profit that year from eleven acres was between $3,000 and $4,000.

154. Easy Tomatoes. – An easy crop, requiring little care. Says a grower in New Jersey: “My single acre of tomatoes netted a clear profit of $120. I am aware that others have realized more than double this sum, but they were experienced hands, while I was new to the business.” Four hundred dollars per acre has frequently been realized from this crop. One person had four acres from which he received from $1,500 to $2,000 annually.

155. Assorted Strawberries. – Here is the experience of a novice: “I ran a ditch through my wet and almost worthless meadow land, and set it out with strawberry plants. The second year I had an enormous crop. The larger berries were separated from the smaller, and the show thus made by the assorted fruit was magnificent. For 600 quarts I received $300, it being a little early for strawberries in the New York market.” It pays to grow early and large fruit.

156. Livings in Lettuce. – Fifteen thousand heads can be set upon an acre. These at the average price of $1.50 per hundred means $225 per acre. Five acres of this crop should give a fair-sized family a good living. It is an auxiliary crop and may be sowed between heads of cabbage.

157. Sovereigns in Spinach. – There are few more important crops in market. It requires little labor, can be cultivated evenings and mornings by a busy man, and pays about $75 an acre.

158. Thousand-Dollar Celery. – Celery may be grown as a second crop after beets, onions, or peas are cleared up. A little reckoning in the number of heads per acre shows that if the grower could get the consumer’s price of eight or ten cents a head, it would yield a clear profit of $1,000.

159. Fortunes in Water-cress. – “I have no doubt,” says a large grower, “that in situations where irrigation could be used at pleasure, or regular plantations made as for cranberries, judging from the enormous price water-cress sells at, picked as it is in the present haphazard way, an acre would sell for $4,000 or $5,000.”

160. The Dollar Blackberry. – When the Lawton first came out, so great was the praise of it and the rush to obtain it that many roots were sent through the mail at $1 apiece, and the lucky discoverer netted a small fortune. But any grower has the same chances to discover a new variety, or to improve on his present stock.

161. Nickels in Pickles. – Do you know that the enormous number of 150,000 cucumbers may be easily grown on an acre of land, and that at the low price of $1.50 per thousand this means $225 per acre? The crop also is very easily raised.

162. The Beet Lot. – You can grow 80,000 roots per acre even when sown a foot apart, yet at $1 per hundred, deducting one-half for expenses, there still results a net value of $400.

163. The Roasting Ear. – You can plant an acre of sweet corn, realize $100 for it, clear it off in August, sow the cleared ground with turnip seed, and from the second crop reap another $100.

164. Paying Peas. – They are the early kind, marketed before the price falls. If grown under glass so as to be crowded on the market in early June, they will bring $4 a bushel, and at that rate an acre will mean $400. If delayed a month, they will not bring a quarter of that sum.

165. Grated Horseradish. – The root is very easily raised, requires little cultivation, but is quite profitable. Grate finely and put in attractive white bottles with red labels. Give it some fancy name, as “Red Orchard,” or “Spring Valley.” “Little Neck” clams got their reputation largely in this way. Sell for ten cents a bottle.

Chapter VII
Money for women

One Hundred Ways a Woman Can Earn a Living – A New Way to Remember Your Friends – The Woman with a Pet Dog – Solving the Servant-girl Question – Shopping for Pleasure and Profit – Profits of a Lady Barber – The Business of “Samples” – The Rise of the Trained Nurse – Dollars in Scents – How to Go to Paris Without Cost – Something that will Sell to Millions of Shoppers – How Clara Louise Kellog Got a Start – A Woman Who Sold her Jewels for Newspapers – Women in the Civil Service.

The field of woman’s work has been vastly augmented during the last half-century. From school teaching and dressmaking, which were about the only occupations open to our grandmothers, the number of ways a woman can make a living have increased to over two hundred. To be exact, there are two hundred and twenty-one occupations open to women, out of a total of two hundred and fifty. It is the design of the author to give only those methods which are unique, unusual, and presumably unknown to most lady readers. In a few cases these money-making methods must be considered as only tributary to a larger source of revenue, as when a salaried position or business enterprise is not sufficient for a support, or when a woman wishes to help the family “eke out a living,” but in most cases it is expected that the suggestions if followed will be an adequate source of income. Several of these ways may often be united where one is insufficient. There is no need for any woman to marry for the sake of a home. The examples given will enable any lady of the least tact, skill, or enterprise, to secure an independent living.

166. The School Store. – If you live near a public school, a small store containing candies, school supplies and knickknacks for the children will be found to bring much profit. The store need not be large or conspicuous. A room in a private house will do. Children, like bees, are all fond of sweets. The store need be open only for an hour in the morning, or noon, and at the close of school, so that other work may be carried on at the same time. A dressmaker, with hours arranged so as not to conflict, could combine very well these two ways of earning a living.

167. The Hand Album. – Have an album made in usual style, except that the places for pictures are omitted. Smear each page with soft wax to the depth of one-sixth of an inch. When a friend calls, slightly heat a page and request him to lay his hands, palms down, upon it. In that way you can preserve the digits of your friends, and you will be surprised to find there is as much difference in hands as in faces. When your album is full, if you choose you can consult a patent lawyer, and arrange to protect your invention. A novelty of this kind would doubtless be immensely popular, and enable the author to reap a financial harvest.

168. The Novelty Bakery. – A woman who knows how to make tempting creations in flour can make a good living. Begin by taking your goods to the Woman’s Exchange, of which almost every large city has at least one. If your baking is novel, from the Exchange will come demands from private customers, and even orders from hotels. A New England woman, beginning in a small way, in a few months had an income of $33 per week.

169. The Front Yard Snap. – With a photographer’s outfit, go through the better class residential sections of a city or town and take the pictures of the children which you will see in every street, and in almost every front yard. Get a child in a most striking position, on a wheel, or in a swing or hammock, or at play. Secure parent’s consent to take the picture. No matter if they declare that they will not purchase, they will yield when they see a pretty picture of their child. Much money can be made at this.

170. The Pet Dog. – Do you know that pet dogs often bring enormous prices? You want the Yorkshire terriers, or the King Charles spaniels, or some of the rare Japanese breeds. A lady in New York counts on $500 yearly as the income from the families raised from one dog, a King Charles spaniel.

171. The Box Lunch. – There is a large field for some one to cultivate in our great office buildings and factories. Thousands would pay for a light lunch which costs five cents, and is sold for ten cents. Rent a small room near a business center. Make known your occupation. Go through the places of business if possible, or if not take a stand near the door, and if your lunch is tastefully arranged, it will find many buyers. After a time you will get regular customers. Profits 100 per cent.

172. The Hair-Dresser. – A refined business for women is the dressing of hair. For $25 you can learn the business. Place samples of all kinds of bangs and switches in the window. They can be sold for a great profit, and if industrious, you can build up in a good neighborhood an excellent paying business, and best of all, it can be done in your own home.

173. Typo and Steno. – In many large cities typewriting and stenography may be learned in the Y. W. C. A. Then with a machine and a rented room cheaply furnished a woman is all ready for business. Many women are making $25 per week. One enterprising young lady takes dictated matter in short hand, and then typewrites it at her leisure, thus saving much time to her busy patrons.

174. The Sewing School. – Here is a vast unworked field. If you understand needlework, and have a little business enterprise, you are certain to succeed. Advertise in the papers and get out circulars, stating that for the small sum of twenty-five cents per week you will teach all pupils plain and fancy sewing. Form your pupils into classes, and if you are gentle and patient, as well as skillful at the needle, you will in a short time have the work which mothers are glad to get rid of. And it can all be done in your own home.

175. Flat Hunting. – Rent a small office and advertise that for a trifling fee you will exactly suit persons looking for homes, and save them all the trouble. Three or four hours a day are spent in house-hunting, and two in the office. You must have a book with your customers’ demands set down in detail, and another book with a careful description of each house to let. A commission might be exacted from both owner and renter. An enterprising woman could in a short time build up a large business in this way.

176. A Tea Room. – Hire a counter in a fashionable store much frequented by ladies. Have a sign that fresh tea is sold here, made to order with good cream. Small accessories may be fresh rolls, toasted crumpets, bread and butter, and other light articles of food. Ladies weary with shopping will surely come to your counter to be refreshed. A lady in one of our large cities made a fortune by this means. The requirements are dazzling cleanliness, a smiling welcome, a cheerful place near the door, and hot, fresh tea.

177. Dress Mending. – Here is a good field. There is a vast army of women who would patronize a mending office rather than run around the city to find a sewing woman, or use their own limited time in the use of the needle. Have a tariff of prices for mending gloves, sewing on buttons, renewing the sleeves, putting braid around the bottom of dresses, etc. The right woman could earn a good living at this business.

178. Lace Handling. – The mending and washing of fine laces is a work that is given to experts, and commands high prices, yet is easily learned. In five lessons at a dollar apiece any lady of ordinary intelligence can learn, or, cheaper yet, one can sometimes give services in return for instruction. You are then in a position to earn a great deal of money. Issue a thousand circulars to the wealthier people of the city, letting them know of your enterprise. This plan combines the three advantages of fascinating employment, good pay, and work done at home.

179. Intelligence Office on the subscription plan. – Buy a copy of the “Social Register;” send circulars to all persons named therein; announce that you have opened an intelligence office on a new plan. For $10 a year you will keep them supplied with as many servants as they want, and you will guarantee satisfaction. Make a specialty of securing servants for people going out of town. Thus you will go far toward solving the perplexing question for your patrons, and make an excellent living for yourself.

180. Professional Mending. – Hotels, boarding houses and bachelor apartments have loud and long calls for mending. Mothers with little ones, professional women, and school-teachers, as well as men, have neither time nor taste for this kind of work. Have an outfit in a small satchel, which should contain a light lunch, a white apron, and various assortments of tapes, buttons, etc. In a short time one would have a regular round of customers. One lady who did this never had to go out of one large hotel for work.

181. The College Cram. – There is room for a lady with a knowledge of the classics and a faculty for teaching to take boys and young men and carry them over the hard spots in their education. These hard spots, which are known as examinations, conditions, etc., are the bane and bugbear of many a young man’s education. In one town a lady earns $100 per month by taking pupils through the intricacies of algebra and Latin.

182. Shoe and Wrap Room. – A room in some fashionable quarter where ladies could go after a journey on the cars and have the dust brushed off their wraps and their shoes polished would doubtless prove remunerative.

183. General Convenience Room. – The last idea might be combined with this. Have a room in which, for the charge of a dime, one could get a glass of ice-water, could read the morning paper, have his clothes brushed, and look over a map of the city or a directory, and have all the advantages of a toilet room.

184. Sick-Room Delicacies. – Another unoccupied field is the preparation of delicacies for the sick. Bouillon, chocolate, jellies and many other kinds of delicacies could be prepared and placed in a show window in some fashionable part of the town. The conditions of success are exquisite neatness and daintiness. It would pay well, for people stop at no cost in providing for their sick friends.

185. Shopping Commission. – If you live at a little distance from the city, a good business may be built up by shopping for your friends and neighbors. By dint of experience you know where to buy, and when your practice is built up you can buy cheaper by reason of larger purchases, and you can give both of these advantages to your patrons. Many women might find here both a congenial and profitable field.

186. School Luncheon. – Here is another good field. Tens of thousands of schoolchildren have to eat a cold luncheon. Rent a small room near a schoolhouse, and provide bouillon, clam and chicken soups, sandwiches, baked beans, lamb pies, with white and brown bread, plain cake and fruit. You will help to preserve the digestion of myriads of children, as well as fill your own pocket with cash.

187. Hatching Birds. – Buy half a dozen songsters at $1.50 apiece, the females at half that price. Get proper cages, mate the birds, provide soft nests made chiefly of cotton; and with care you can do an excellent business. Birds in good condition mate two or three times a year. One lady, with eighteen pairs of canary birds netted $500 a year.

188. Butter and Egg Store. – Butter and eggs are two things which every housekeeper wants fresh, but which are difficult to obtain. Get some reliable farmer to supply you at stated dates, and procure a list of customers. Then with a boy to deliver and a push cart for the merchandise, you have little to do but figure your profits. An advantage of this plan is that it gives you the most of your time for other work. The business may be extended almost ad infinitum.

189. Saratoga Chips. – These are a sample of what may be done with a single good article by one who knows how. One family has a weekly income of $12.50 from this means.

190. Fancy Lamp Shades. – Made of crêpe papers they are very cheap, and look almost as well as silk. Any woman of ordinary ability can make them, and they sell readily. She can buy for sixty cents material for a shade which she can sell for $1.25, thus more than doubling her money.

191. Bee-Keeping. – This is another means of large profit. It can be carried on even in a city where there is a small plot of ground. Fill all the space not occupied by the hives with white clover and such other flowers as your study of bees will tell you they delight in. Buy a book about bees. The advantage of this industry is that the cost of supporting the bees is practically nothing. There is no risk. After the first small expenditure of capital for boxes and hives all is profit.

192. Cleansing and Bleaching. – There are many things too costly to be intrusted to an ordinary washerwoman, and many other cleansing processes that do not come within that woman’s sphere. Cleaning feathers, velvets, furs, gloves, silks, and many other articles afford a wide opportunity for one who understands the business. Who can take grease spots from carpets, fruit stains from napkins and table covers, paint from windows, thumb-marks from books, and scratches from furniture? Here is a useful field.

193. Fancy Soaps. – Fortunes have been made from fancy soaps. The process of making is easy, and the variety of method is so great, and the possible ingredients so many, that there need be no danger of infringing on anyone’s trademark. Get a recipe-book and practice on the kinds given in the formulas; then branch out into new kinds. The sale will depend upon your ability. Give your product an attractive appearance.

194. Home Architecture. – Write to the secretaries or agents of church building societies. Many of these societies publish pamphlets, in which, in addition to the designs for churches, will be found many cuts for pretty little parsonages. From these you can compile an attractive little book of home architecture, which would sell to every person contemplating building a home; and almost every one living in a rented house hopes some day to rear his own domicile. If you have a friend who is an architect, he would procure for you other books of plans.

195. Home Ornaments. – What is a home without at least a few trifling ornaments? An inventive mind can think of a hundred inexpensive ways of beautifying a room. But most people are not inventive. If, therefore, you have that gift, and can think of a few novelties in lace and embroidered goods which you can make and sell for fractions of a dollar, you will have opened your way to constant and remunerative employment.

196. Doubtful Debts. – It is well known that in efforts that require perseverance and persistence women succeed better than men. Grocers, butchers, real estate agents, and in fact almost every business man, has a large number of accounts, a considerable per cent. of which he considers worthless. To any one who could succeed in collecting them, the dealer would give a very large per cent., in some cases even amounting to half the bill. Many of these are really collectible if attempted with the persuasive arts of womanhood. Here is a large and profitable field for a woman having the right qualifications.

197. Dressing Dolls. – A fair profit can be made by taking orders for making dolls’ dresses, as they can be bought and dressed for about one-half the cost of those already dressed. Persons giving the order should be required to bring the materials for the dress.

198. Fruit Preservers. – Vast numbers of people are in the country during the fruit season, and cannot “do up” fruits; they must depend on the grocer. Let a thrifty, economical woman who knows how equip herself with sugar, fruit, cans and preserve kettles, and she will not long wait for customers if she makes her business known. The second year, her patrons having tested her talents and tasted her fruits, and finding them so much better than “store goods,” will flood her with orders.

199. A Mushroom Cellar. – An enterprising woman hired a cellar at a rent of $10 per month, had it fitted up with shelves, placed on these shelves in order, straw, fertilizers, and soil; then put on mushroom spawn, renewing it at intervals, as also at longer intervals the soil. Average sale of mushrooms per week, $31.50. Average expenses, $8.80. Profit per week, $22.70.

200. Poultry Raising. – Following is the experience of another woman in raising poultry. She bought forty-five Minorcas, because they lay a large white egg, and are nonsitters and prolific layers. Each hen laid on an average one hundred and sixty-four eggs per annum. She purchased also forty Brahmas for sitters and for fattening. Total expenses for fowls and for keeping, $278.70. Total receipts, $1,144.11. Net profit, $865.31.

201. Home Hothouse. – Thousands of people will buy plants already started who would not go to the trouble to buy seeds, slips, and pots. There is also a large demand for cut flowers all the year round. Have a cellar for rooting, and a south room for sunning. A liberal use of cards and circulars, stating what you propose to do, will surely bring custom. The secret of the florists’ business is to provide flowers for every month in the year, and to force or retard the flowers that suit the demands of each month. This is a very pretty employment for a woman, and can be done in her own home. There are three hundred and twelve floral establishments in this country managed by women. The work is easy and tasteful to ladies. The elements of success are the habit of early rising, business ability, close superintendence of laborers, intelligent advertising, knowledge of plants, and promptness in filling orders. The best location is near a large cemetery. One florist thus located takes in from $1,500 to $2,000 per month during the busy season.

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