44. Will the money I have subscribed be sufficient or will other money

be necessary for the company successfully to carry out its plans? If you answer no, how much more will be necessary? In the event of the above list of questions being answered in full, inform the salesman that you will familiarize yourself with the report and will later call upon him to go over the matter. First look into the reputation of the men connected with the company. Also the reputation of the trustees and officers. Also obtain the financial standing of the large stockholders. This can be done in cities of over 50,000 by consulting reporting companies. See some prominent merchant and find out the best reporting company in the city. Call or write the reporting company and ascertain from them whether the above parties are good pay and whether they are the kind of men that are successful in carrying out plans. This report is important; it will cost you so much per name but it is well worth the fee to you. If the majority of these men are unknown--or have a poor reputation and are bad pay--it would be unnecessary to go further in your investigations as your chances would be very poor in such a company. Oftentimes this investigation alone will show the promotors have suits pending against them and even judgments on record. However, if these investigations show the above-referred-to men O. K., submit the signed report to a banker not named as the company banker and obtain as complete a report as possible in writing from the bank and pay for the trouble; if the bank will not give a written report obtain a verbal report and write it down later yourself. If their advice is for or against the investment, obtain their reasons, and if none is given do not give it any thought. Now see a lawyer and have him give you an exhaustive written report on your signed report, and pay him for it. Remember that it is far better to pay $25 to $50 and know where your investment is to go, than take a chance of losing all you possess. These last two reports will be very valuable to you. I suggest that they be put in writing so that when you are alone in your home you will be able to consider more carefully their report and advice. Now make a copy of the real property and write the assessors of the county in which the land lies for a report concerning this land and its improvements. This information will be furnished you free of charge. If it be farm property, they can inform you quite well the kind of land and its value and also give you what improvements, if any, are on the land and their nature. And the same is true of city property. While the assessor’s estimate may be a little below the real value of the land it is far better to have the land at too conservative a figure than an excessive figure. In the event that the company is in possession of mortgages, have a detailed report from the county assessor’s office as to the mortgaged property. This will give you the character of the mortgage security. The writer in the last two years has saved more than $5,000 to his clients by checking up the property used as a security for the mortgage. In one case my client requested me to prepare a deed and have it ready for him at three o’clock, the time of request being about 1:30 P. M., that he had decided to accept a $1,500 mortgage. The mortgage ran for three years--two years having elapsed--and the interest had been paid to date. He permitted me, by way of caution, to call the county assessor’s office, some hundred miles away, by long distance, which revealed that the land securing the mortgage was above the snow line up in a mountain region and worthless. Armed with the above information you are prepared to talk and question the salesman. If he is sincere he will endeavor to answer fully your questions. After you talk with the salesman do not give your answer at once but inform him that you will give him your final answer in two or three days. With the various reports before you--and the salesman’s answers to your questions which you should jot down--as judge of your own affairs decide your course of action. If your decision is to invest your money you will be an asset to the company as you will be familiar with its workings. Oftentimes ignorant investors in a company will destroy a good proposition. If your decision is favorable, put away the signed report of the company, along with all the data, you have secured, and in case the future develops that the facts stated in the company’s report is untrue, you can lay the representation made, before an attorney and your case will be clear. ONE THOUSAND WAYS TO MAKE A LIVING In presenting these one thousand tried and tested plans for making a living, the author hopes and believes that he will be the means of helping many people to better methods of earning money; by pointing out to them the occupations to which they are better adapted, and in which their chances of success may be greatly increased. Especially will the opportunities thus presented be welcomed by the families of those who have sacrificed their lives for their country, and those who return from the war wounded, or otherwise incapacitated from following their former callings. They will find in this book many valuable suggestions for the taking up of other lines of work, and profiting by the experiences of those who have successfully worked the various plans herein set forth. It should be borne in mind, however, that those adopting any of the plans herein outlined must combine in the execution of the same the elementary essentials of earnestness, honesty and perseverance, coupled with a strong will power and a determination to win success. Let them make this their one definite aim, and they will find that what others have done, they can do, and thereby bring to themselves and their families that much desired end--prosperity and happiness. PLAN No. 1. WEAVING BASKETS FOR FERNS It was the clever idea of a woman that prompted her to dig ferns out of the woods of her native state, and put them in attractive raffia baskets woven by herself. The florists of her neighboring city gladly pay good prices for all of these she can bring in. In the winter she fills these same baskets with holly, attaches a bow of red ribbon to the side of each basket, and sells them as fast as she can turn them out. Other plants can be used to the same advantage in other localities. PLAN No. 2. PROFESSIONAL HOSTESS A young girl who possessed a pleasing personality, but had no capital, created a profitable profession for herself by announcing to the young mothers of her neighborhood that she would take charge of children’s parties at the low price of two dollars for an afternoon. She arranged the menu and planned the entertainment for the youngsters, and did it so well that she soon had all the orders she could fill. From this small beginning, she enlarged her activities by planning parties for grown people as well, at a much higher remuneration, and she is now receiving orders for conducting all kinds of entertainment, and it pays her well. PLAN No. 3. A TEACHER TURNS CHAUFFEUR One of the teachers of a Seattle school was obliged by ill-health temporarily to suspend teaching, and, for outdoor exercise, engaged to run an auto carrying children from a distance to and from the school. She soon found this work so healthful and pleasant that she bought a machine, carried passengers for a while at a good profit, and finally, in partnership with her brother, an expert mechanic, went into the automobile business as a regular occupation. [Illustration: Plan No. 3. A School Teacher’s Way] She makes considerable money by giving lessons to women in the management of a car. PLAN No. 4. PAID READING MATTER FOR NEWSPAPERS Just after the panic of 1893, when jobs were not to be had, an advertising man made a contract with a Denver daily newspaper to conduct a column of small reading notices, on a commission of forty per cent. He went among the small merchants who were not advertising in the display columns, and found they were willing to spend a little money each month in that sort of publicity, though not able to advertise extensively. He wrote attractive items for each one, and had them set up in the form of news matter. By keeping his column free from display lines and other indications of advertising, he soon built up a very handsome column, which many merchants were willing to patronize, as the cost was small and the results extremely satisfactory. He also wrote special articles that looked and read exactly like news items, and even secured columns of interviews, at regular rates, with leading business men concerning general trade conditions, thereby aiding in restoring public confidence following that panicky period. His commissions during that year of hard times averaged forty dollars per week, and he had made many thousands of dollars for the paper besides. This plan is not so easy to work as it was then, as all paid articles must now be followed by the word “adv,” meaning advertisement; and yet, even with that handicap, reading notices are still regarded by many people as more effective than display advertisements, and the man who has a talent for writing that class of matter can still make good money by doing so. PLAN No. 5. VACANT LOTS KEPT CLEAN Here is the case of a woman who, though having only a few hundred dollars, had a lot of foresight and energy, and these qualities enabled her to originate a plan that paid. Thousands of vacant lots in her city were covered with weeds that were an eyesore to their respective neighborhoods, and detracted from their appearance when shown to prospective purchasers. She went to the agents for these lots, made contracts with them under which she was to keep them clean of weeds the entire season for $3 per one hundred feet frontage, bought a mowing machine with her $100, and went to work. She also contracted to mow the lawns of a large number of people, hiring thirty men at $1.50 per day to do the work, and charging $2 per day for the work done by each man. The profits of her first month’s work paid for her mowers and her advertising, but after that all the profit was hers. The summer’s work, after paying all expenses, including her own board and clothes, netted her $1,200. The next season she contracted to keep the weeds from city lots that aggregated 2,000 acres, at $3 per one hundred feet frontage, plowed those lots all up, sowed them in wheat, kept fifty men employed, mowed more lawns, cut and threshed her wheat, and found she had made $11,000, with good prospects of making a great deal more the next year. And all she had to start on was a few hundred dollars and a plan. PLAN No. 6. MINT CULTURE No capital, and but little space, is required for growing mint on a profitable scale. One woman, who is making and saving money for the education of her children, goes at it in a very methodical manner. She lays out her ground in beds with walks between, and each variety is given a separate bed. Each bed has a border of sage or other herb plants that find a ready sale. The soil should be loose and fine, and well fertilized, to obtain the best results. She not only supplies customers in her nearest town, but, as her business increases, is shipping a great deal of it to the city markets, where it is in constant demand from hotels, cafes, druggists, candy makers, etc. What she does not sell, she utilizes at home in the making of candy, delicious sweets and aromatic vinegars. Crystallized and candied mint leaves, mint sprays, mint vinegar and other products of this herb are much sought after, and to the resourceful person who has a taste for this class of work there is a mint of money in mint. PLAN No. 7. CLIPPING COLLECTION The woman who has a taste for literary or club work can turn many an honest penny by starting a small clipping bureau of her own. One lady who made a success of this, both socially and financially, procured some large envelopes, and put all the clippings she made from magazines, newspapers, etc., on any one subject, into one envelope, duly labeled, until she had accumulated an extensive variety. Realizing that material for papers to be read at the meetings of women’s clubs are always eagerly sought for, she specialized on those subjects that engrossed the attention of club women, particularly biographical sketches, entertainments, plans for special holidays, and table decorations, place cards, games, amusements, etc. Then she let it be known that for a small fee, she would furnish the material for properly entertaining the club, and found her clippings in constant demand. This is a good plan, that can be carried out with considerable profit, and one that requires no capital to start or operate it. PLAN No. 8. A ONE-COW DAIRY Here is how a lady who knew her business made a lot of pin money from what she called her “One-Cow Dairy.” There were three in the family and their available capital consisted of an excellent cow, with an average butter production of one pound per day the year round, besides supplying the family with plenty of milk and cream. They also had a small cream separator, which cost considerable to begin with, but more than paid for itself, even with the output of a single cow, as it insured clean milk, more and better cream, and required less work as well as but little space. For a butter worker, they had a ten-gallon V-shaped barrel churn, also a four-gallon stone jar for holding the cream, and a good pair of balance scales. Her husband built a dairy, 8x12 feet, with cemented floor, on the shady side of the house, covering it with vines, thus assuring a cool place always. She bought an iceless cooler, made entirely of galvanized iron, which is placed outside for holding the cream, and in which, the night before churning, she puts two pails of water, to preserve an even temperature. She sells her butter the year around, to regular customers, at forty cents per pound, and has demands for more than she can produce. When the cow is about to go dry, she puts away, in brine, strong enough to float an egg, all the butter the family will need for that period, and having tied the pieces of butter up in muslin thoroughly sterilized, it keeps as fresh and sweet as the day it was made. The total cost of establishing her dairy, exclusive of the separator, was $26.25, and with the present equipment she is ready to add one or two more cows to her dairy, whenever she finds those that are as good as the one she already has. She will thus be at but little additional expense, while greatly increasing her revenue. PLAN No. 9. WRITING BUSINESS LETTERS Many good business men write very poor business letters, and anyone having a taste and a talent for this class of work can make the writing of such letters a permanent and profitable profession. A former newspaper man in a western city took it up, and found in it a much larger income than even the liberal salary he had formerly received. Living in a town of about 50,000 inhabitants, and having a rather extensive acquaintance, he called upon a number of the leading merchants and offered to come at a certain hour each day and dictate the answers to all letters received from out-of-town customers. As most of these firms did a large mail order business, and the heads of the concerns in many cases lacked either the time or the ability to give the correspondence the attention it deserved, they were glad to turn it over to a man who could handle it in a thorough manner. This man found that he could easily dictate one hundred or more letters per day, among the various firms engaging his services, and could well afford to do the work for five cents per letter, thus making at least thirty dollars per week, with but little effort. He also prepared form letters for many of his patrons, for which he charged from five to ten dollars each, and thus increased his income to over fifty dollars per week. It is readily seen, therefore, that this is not only a very genteel profession for anyone adapted to it, but one that also pays well, besides being a good thing for the merchants who have their letters written by someone who knows how. PLAN No. 10. WINDOW-CARD SUGGESTIONS An Illinois woman tells an interesting story of how she helped her husband rise from a $20-a-week clerk to proprietor of a fine office business netting them $5000 a year, but she furnished the plan. Both were employed in an advertising agency, and patronized a nearby delicatessen store kept by a German woman who prepared palatable foods, but never had used any form of publicity concerning them. The lady with the idea was fond of the home-baked beans and the salads sold at this place, but had no means of knowing on what days they were to be had. So, instead of asking the German lady what days she had these on sale, she suggested the idea of furnishing her with attractive window-cards and appropriate decorations showing each day’s specialties in a way that drew favorable attention--and an increased volume of trade. Later she asked her patron to allow her to write and place in the local papers notices regarding her specialties, and this greatly added to the incomes of all concerned. But it was the results of those display cards in the window, “Today is Baked-Bean Day,” and “If You Like Potato Salad, You’ll Like Ours,” that turned the trick and got things going. Soon after this, the husband and wife joined forces and made a “drive” for other lines of business, with the result that in six years they were occupying a handsome four-room suite of offices, with two large national advertisers and twenty-seven smaller ones for a clientele, were employing a rather extensive corps of assistants, and clearing up $5,000 per year net profits. It was a woman’s plan that made this a success. PLAN No. 11. STARTING A GINGHAM SHOP From a position as a small-salaried clerk in a Missouri wholesale dry-goods store to the ownership of a good-paying store of their own, is told by a wife, who first conceived the idea of the enterprise. Needing some ginghams for her little girls’ school dresses, she learned that gingham stocks in all the retail stores were extremely limited, the clerks telling her that the firms purchased cheap wash goods only once a year, and they were practically out. On her way home, she passed an attractive storeroom in a good location, and suddenly she formulated a plan by which she and her husband would start something new--A GINGHAM STORE! She talked the matter over with her husband that night, and he was very favorably impressed with the idea. The firm by which he was employed also thought it would be a splendid thing and offered him very liberal terms on whatever purchases of stock he might desire from them. What money they had they invested in stocks, improvements, rent, advertising, etc., the wife selecting every piece of gingham that went into the store, putting herself in the place of the woman who would want to buy ginghams for any purpose. A handsome electric sign announced “The Gingham Shop”; as did the lettering on the windows, the bill-boards and in the street cars, and ads. in all the papers told the story of “The Gingham Shop.” They advertised a dolly’s gingham apron free to every little girl who came to their opening accompanied by her mother. That brought the mothers, and they kept coming, more and more of them every day, for they managed to keep the gingham idea before all the people all the time, in a thousand different ways, until every one who thought of ginghams at all thought of “The Gingham Shop.” Their store became the fad, so that they had practically all the gingham trade of the town and for many miles around. They sold strictly for cash, and thereby eliminated bookkeeping, collecting and bad debts. PLAN No. 12. CROCHETING DOLL CLOTHES Noticing a very pretty doll’s crocheted sack in a store, and hearing the proprietor say he feared he could get no more like it, as the lady who made those things for him had not been in the store for some time, a young lady who had ideas of her own decided to take up the work herself. She bought some worsted, went home and proceeded to make a number of dolls’ sacks, hoods, capes, booties, caps, slippers, muffs, etc., put some baby ribbon on most of them, and, after figuring up the cost, put a price on each article and returned to the store. The proprietor was so well pleased that he gave her a large order, as did also several others in that and nearby towns. Then she learned where she could buy the worsted and ribbon at wholesale prices, and until after the holidays her spare time was all spent in crocheting dainty things for dolly, when she found she had made a profit of nearly $100 in odd moments. Later she began taking orders for crocheted scarfs, shawls, fascinators, etc., and made it a regular business for it continued to pay well. And it required very little time, capital or labor to make it a success. PLAN No. 13. MAKING READY-TO-WEAR APRONS Making and selling ready-to-wear aprons is the means a woman may employ to earn a good many extra dollars, without interfering very much with her regular household duties. She can turn her parlor into a work- and sales-room, where she can exhibit every description of aprons, in sizes and patterns, and offer them at attractive prices. A woman we know, now has a large list of regular patrons and has found it necessary to employ help in doing her housework, so that she can devote the larger portion of her time to this new enterprise. PLAN No. 14. MAKING CANVAS GLOVES Making canvas gloves would not seem to be a very good way to earn money, but a woman who lived near a small mining town, where the demand for canvas gloves was much greater than the supply, found she could live very comfortably on it. She had a sewing machine, and having ripped an old pair of gloves open to get the pattern, found that it was merely a matter of sewing seams on the machine, so she turned them out very rapidly, and earned many dollars by doing so. One need not live in a mining town to find a demand for canvas gloves, for they are used by thousands of other people--railroad men, mechanics, teamsters, lumber workers, gardeners--indeed, nearly everybody who works needs them, so why should not other women of slender means also improve this humble but better-than-nothing means of making a living? PLAN No. 15. SPATS FOR COLLEGE GIRLS A college girl with a limited allowance had just enough spare cash to pay for a new blue-gray tailor-made suit, but not enough more to pay for a pair of spats to match, which the tailor offered to make for $2. However, she had a small piece of the goods left over when the suit was finished, and by ripping an old pair of spats to note the pattern, she proceeded to make a pair of new ones herself; silk-lined, but with the old buttons. They were so well made, and presented so neat an appearance, that all the other girls in the college implored her to make spats to match their suits. She did so and earned sufficient to pay her college expenses. PLAN No. 16. A CHILDREN’S 5c PLAY GROUND It was the sound of children’s voices raised in shouts of glee, as they reveled in the delights of a six-passenger, hand-propelled merry-go-round in the back yard of a friend, that gave to a young man, temporarily out of a position, an idea which he promptly enlarged to the dignity of a community affair, and imparted a world of pleasure to hundreds of children, while adding very largely to his own bank account. The small merry-go-round in the private grounds of his friend was operated upon strictly business principles by the hopeful scions of the household, and every other youthful pleasure seeker was obliged to contribute some toy or other article of small value in return for the privilege of a few dizzy whirls in the small-sized machine, while being regaled with music from a miniature organ that played certain lively tunes while the machine was in motion. The “admission fee” was a book, pencil, knife, rubber ball, or anything that represented value to the young proprietors, but it had to be something, and everybody was happy. The young man who was a witness of the performance began at once to enlarge upon the idea of entertaining children for a merely nominal sum, but which in the aggregate would amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars; and, having a little available capital, he rented a vacant corner containing several lots, in a central location, and began systematically to equip it. He bought a 12-seated merry-go-round, three swings, four see-saws, three “Irish Mails”, two tricycles, two velocipedes, and $100 worth of awnings to cover the entire scene of gaiety, and protect the little guests from both sunshine and rain. He constructed a sand pit, installed rag-doll games, etc., and built a board walk around it all for the racing of the tricycles, velocipedes and “Irish Mails.” He hired a carpenter to build a fence around the property, with an arch over the entrance for the name of the play-ground, and considered a few booths for the sale of candy, soda water and other soft drinks. His entire expense, including advertising and incidentals, was $382, and he placed the price of admission, which entitled the visitor to all the attractions of the place at five cents. From the day the gates were opened the place was filled with children, for parents were glad to have their little ones participate in the clean and healthful entertainment it afforded. Within the first three months the enterprising proprietor had taken in enough to pay all the expense of establishing and conducting the play-ground, and noted that he had earned a net profit of $210 besides. When winter came, he turned the place into a skating rink, and made a profit several times larger than it had brought as a summer play-ground for children. PLAN No. 17. CO-OPERATIVE COOKING The daily drudgery of cooking is a nightmare; the horror and the despair of the ordinary housewife. And no wonder; for no other member of the family would ever stand for it. Therefore, any reasonable and economical plan that will free the wife and mother from this thraldom, and at the same time assure equally satisfactory service in the matter of food, at possibly less cost, is sure of a cordial welcome. The co-operative kitchen not only solves this vexed problem for the housewife in general, but at the same time it affords a comfortable living to the two or three or half-dozen women who have the energy to give it a start in almost any community, and the culinary skill to keep it going good after it is started. If women have sufficient capital to establish such a business in the right way, so much the better, but if they have not, they may incorporate for that purpose, and thus secure the necessary equipment for making it a going concern. As a private enterprise it would produce a handsome and permanent income for its originators, while as an incorporated concern it would greatly reduce the household expenses of its members. What is known as the Montclair plan provides for the serving of hot meals at any time desired, in the homes of the patrons or members, and according to the menu sent in by each individual in each family. Thermos bottles for the liquids, and Swedish containers for the meats, solve the problem of keeping food either hot or cold for an indefinite period, and the plan, if properly worked, is certain to grow in popular favor wherever it is tried. There’s money in it for somebody. During the war England learned its practicability and great advantage. PLAN No. 18. STARTING A TEA ROOM To start a tea room, and start it right, will require an amount of capital ranging all the way from $500 to $1,000, according to the locality and the amount of competition, either of other tea rooms, or of the service offered by various larger enterprises that use this as a side line. A lady in Denver gives her experience in the following condensed statement: She was fortunate in securing a location where the advent of a tea room was joyously hailed as a much desired innovation, and where the conditions obviated the necessity for an extensive publicity campaign, so that her little capital of $500 was sufficient to launch the enterprise in fairly good shape. She started with a limited menu, fully intending to extend it as she gained experience and patronage. To begin with, she served tea, coffee, chocolate, broths, toasts, muffins, sandwiches, salads, fresh eggs, cake, cold meats, together with simple desserts, such as rice pudding, tarts, baked apples and stewed prunes, with whipped cream. She made it a special point to see that every item was of the best quality, properly prepared, and served with delicacy and tact, while cleanliness pervaded every nook and corner of her dainty little establishment. At the same time she guarded zealously against waste, and showed excellent judgment in providing just the exact amount of each material that could be utilized to advantage. She hired a neat, pretty and attractively attired maid as waitress, who was tactful in her demeanor towards guests. The prompt, courteous and refined service of this maid proved a valuable asset, as she soon became a general favorite with the patrons of the place, through her earnest endeavor to please. The taking and filling of large orders for outside affairs--such as sandwiches, salads, etc., as well as the renting of her china, table silver and other accessories, also proved a source of considerable revenue. Sometimes the tea-room itself would be rented out for social functions, such as card parties, church and lodge affairs or wedding feasts. On such occasions the proprietress did practically all of the catering, and was well paid for her services and accommodations. During the first year she kept on display and for sale a line of antiques, art novelties, embroideries, confectionary, fine stationery, and other articles that commanded a ready sale, and thereby added considerably to her income during that trying period of making a beginning. As her regular patronage increased, however, she gradually discarded these side-lines, and concentrated all her efforts upon steadily and permanently increasing the scope of her trade. She showed decided originality and talent in the preparation of her menu cards, and gave them an artistic effect which was at once striking and vastly different from the ordinary. Her prices, while extremely reasonable, afforded a satisfactory profit on every item, and at the end of the first year she had not only paid all expenses, but had a comfortable balance left over with which to begin the second year on a much more extensive scale. PLAN No. 19. BREAD AND CAKE BAKING Many men lose their positions, from one cause or another, but it isn’t every one of them who has a resourceful, skilful and determined wife to help him out. Here is one who had: This man who had been a salesman was “let out” because his firm could no longer manufacture the goods he had been selling, and, as times were hard, another position could not be obtained. The family had never saved anything, and, their grocer changing suddenly to the cash system, left them with only half a dozen potatoes, a few pounds of flour, half a pound of lard, a cup of sugar, a little salt--and three hungry boys, to say nothing of the parents. It was then that the plucky wife and mother rose to the occasion and saved the day. But it required a lot of grit and hard work. She peeled, sliced and boiled three of the six precious potatoes, adding water as the boiling went on. Then she put into a pan three tablespoonfuls of flour, one of sugar, and one of salt, scalding them with the hot water in which the potatoes had been boiled, and adding two quarts of cold water, making the mixture lukewarm. Five cents from the small hoard of the family bought yeast one-half of which was saved for the next time, after moistening it with water and pouring it into the mixture. Covering the pan tightly, she set it aside until morning while the family went supperless to bed. The hustling little woman was up at five o’clock the next morning and put twelve pounds of flour into a large pan, mixed in two heaping tablespoonfuls of lard, two of sugar and two of salt, then added the yeast mixture, which made an ordinary bread dough, and set it in a warm place to rise. At eight a. m. she molded the dough into rolls, twelve rolls to each pound, two and one-half inches across and pressed down to an inch in thickness. These she put into a greased pan, not allowing them to quite touch each other, as they sell better when baked separately. By ten o’clock her eldest boy, who rode a wheel, had been excused from school, came home to do the selling. With five dozen light brown rolls in a basket, he started out to sell them at 10 cents a dozen. In less than half an hour he was back for three dozen more, and returned in a short time with an order for the remainder, which the mother refused to accept, as she was keeping those for her own hungry family. [Illustration: Plan No. 19. God helps those who help themselves] The next day she went through with the same program, except on a larger scale, and still was unable to supply the demand for her beautifully browned hot rolls that were ready for delivery just before meal time, and looked so tempting. Her boy being out of school on Saturday, she mixed two pans of cake dough, one white and one brown, and spread them into a large bread pan so as to marble brown and white, and making a cake one and one-half inches thick, when baked. Iced thinly, in plain white, and cut into two and one-half-inch squares, these sold readily for 20 cents a dozen, and were delicious. At the end of four days the little woman had made $10, and Monday morning her husband, still out of a position, offered to do the selling and delivering--greatly to her delight and the profit of both--for the sales increased until they had more demands for their products than they could supply. She also began to bake delicious bread and pies, as well as rolls and cakes, and sold every article at a good price, that meant a handsome profit. This was the beginning of a successful bakery business for this family. PLAN No. 20. PENCIL SHARPENING MACHINE FREE The teacher who finds the sharpening of pencils for her pupils a large and disagreeable part of her daily duties, will welcome this plan as a perfect godsend: that the plan, when properly operated by a live man, is a money-maker, is demonstrated by the fact that a Chicago man made big profits out of it. He bought a large number of that botanical wonder known as the Resurrection Plant, or Anasta-tica, which can be obtained at a cost of 2 cents each, or less, when ordered in large quantities, and even when retailed at as low a price as 10 cents each, yield an enormous profit. To those not familiar with this remarkable plant, it may be well to explain that, altho it stays green while kept in water changed often enough to prevent it becoming stagnant or rancid, when taken out of the water it dries and curls up and goes to sleep, remaining in this state for years, and re-awakening or being “resurrected” immediately upon being placed in water again, when it will open up and commence to grow in half an hour or less. When tired of seeing it grow, you simply take it out of the water, let it “go to sleep” again, and re-awaken or resurrect it at any time you desire. Many people would gladly pay several dollars for a simple plant, but in the operation of this plan you can well afford to sell them at 10 cents each, as you realize a profit of 8 cents apiece, and one in every schoolroom in the land will prove a constant source of delight, as well as of educational value. This is the way the Chicago man works the plan to the pleasure of teachers and pupils, and his own profit of something like $300 per week: he not only buys thousands of these Resurrection Plants, at, say, 2 cents each, but also a number of the best pencil sharpening machines, which cost him about 90 cents each. He consigns one of these machines and thirty of the Resurrection Plants to each teacher in a public school and requests her to announce that the pencil sharpener will belong to that particular room, for the full use of all of them, if each pupil will take home one of the plants and bring 10 cents back to her the next morning, explaining to them the peculiar characteristics of the plant. Of course, every child gladly performs this small service, and the teacher then remits to the consigner, the $3.00 collected, and he has exactly doubled his money, as both the pencil sharpener and the thirty plants cost him but $1.50. If there are over thirty pupils in the room, that simply means more plants and more profits, for with the second consignment of thirty plants it is not necessary to send the pencil sharpener, and the Chicago man’s profit on that transaction is therefore $2.40 instead of $1.50. As there are many thousands of public schools in this country, and nearly all of them have a number of rooms, anyone who is good at figures can easily make a reasonable calculation as to the probable profits. PLAN No. 21. $5,000 A YEAR FROM 8¹⁄₂ ACRES “The touch of a woman’s hand” is what turned eight and one-half acres of unattractive, idle land on the shores of Long Island Sound into a productive little farm that is now netting it’s owner a profit of over $5,000 a year! Don’t believe it? Listen! To be sure, she had a few hundred dollars--just enough to buy it and improve it with a cheap little cottage, a small barn and some poultry sheds, and plant it to fruit trees, besides every sort of vegetable that enjoyed the greatest demand. She now has an orchard containing the best varieties of fruit trees, 1,000 apple, 500 peach, 100 pear, 100 quince, 100 cherry--besides one-fourth acre in grapes, one-half acre in raspberries, blackberries, etc., and still has plenty of room left for vegetables, planting them between the rows of fruit trees, thus affording ample cultivation for all. She employs one man regularly at $40 per month, and hires extra help in the busy seasons of the year. To supply the immediate demand for the less common garden products she grew okra, French finochio, endive, chicory, etc., getting many ideas from seed catalogues, Government publications that are sent for the postage. She plants large quantities of all vegetables, and cultivates every foot of the ground, fertilizers are freely used, and crops changed from year to year. She finds early asparagus and peaches the most profitable of all the things she raises, and while her first garden was growing she wrote letters to her friends in the city, asking them if they would not like a few samples of her fresh vegetables. They did and said so, and each one became a regular customer. As she produced more, she kept increasing her list of patrons by the same means, and to these she ships her products in “knock-down” crates that cost her 2¹⁄₂ cents each, and, unless otherwise ordered, she fills these crates half with fruit and half with vegetables. The crates each hold six great basketfuls of produce, and cost the customer $1.50, besides 25 cents each for expressage. By picking her products early in the morning, she has them delivered in the city for dinner, while they are fresh and much preferred to those bought at corner groceries. Having her own horse and wagon, the cost and labor involved in shipping is very small, and 500 crates easily net her $750. Realizing from her own experience, the longing of city women for a quiet, rural spot in which to spend the week-ends, she informed a limited number of her lady friends in town that for $1.50 per day she would give them room, board and transportation, to and from the station, and so many of them gladly accepted her invitation that the capacity of her small cottage was soon taxed to the utmost. But she will not take regular boarders, and thus has the greater portion of her time to herself, to be devoted to such activities as best suit her. Those women who are given the privilege of spending the week-end on the farm not only cheerfully pay the moderate charges, but many of them render valuable assistance by working in her garden, as a pleasant means of relaxation and an agreeable change from the exacting requirements of city life. The little 8¹⁄₂ acre farm wasn’t much to look at when she first took it over, but she has made it a veritable bower of beauty, a haven of rest, and a revenue producer to the extent of $5,000 a year, all set down in the column marked “net profits.” PLAN No. 22. POLITICAL MANUAL Politics is always an interesting subject, particularly to politicians, whether of large or small calibre, and the man who can formulate a plan by which to “aid the party,” and at the same time insure an income for himself has certainly “picked a winner.” We know of a man who did this, most successfully, and this is the way he did it: His city, like all others, had political organizations of varying degrees of efficiency and influence, and desiring to assist in placing his own political party in the lead, while devising a good revenue from his activities at the same time, he hit upon the plan of a manual giving a resume of the main issues of the campaign, his party’s position regarding the same, the various ward and precinct boundaries, the names and addresses of all precinct committeemen, as well as those of the chairman and secretary of the central committee, the location of each polling place, dates of registration, of primaries and general election, and data of every character which would be interesting to voters. Instead of leaving it to the secretary to compile and issue this manual, and having it printed and distributed at the expense of the committee, this man sought and obtained the authority of the committee for the publication of the same without cost to them, had them indorse it as the official publication, and proceeded to have it issued in attractive form. Most of the candidates for office on his party ticket were glad to give him half tone portraits of themselves, with a declaration of the principles for which they stood and pay him from $25 to $50 each for the publicity thus obtained. Besides, practically all the merchants belonging to that particular party also gave him large advertisements, as the manual reached all the voters of the ward or county, regardless of party affiliations, and proved an excellent advertising medium. Finding the plan so successful in his own county, he extended it to other counties, and finally to the entire state. PLAN No. 23. THEATRE-GOERS’ WEEKLY In many cities the theatrical managers arrange in some way to compile a list of theatre goers, and send them, by mail, neatly printed postal cards announcing the attractions billed for their houses several days in advance of their appearance. This plan has proved successful in most cases, but a man in one city of the middle west improved greatly upon it by publishing a weekly that embraced all the theatres and amusement places, and gave them all very much wider publicity, at no cost to any of them. He arranged with the manager of each theatre and motion picture house in his city to furnish him with all the data concerning engagements for a week or two in advance, obtaining details of coming attractions, with portrait cuts and personal sketches of the most prominent actors and actresses billed for appearance at each house, a synopsis of the play, or any other feature that would naturally create a desire to see it. Write-ups and notes of local interest were also an excellent feature in this weekly, and it was so well edited and printed that nearly all copies were carefully preserved by those receiving them. Instead of going to the trouble and expense of mailing, these weeklies were distributed at all the theatres and movie houses at every performance, and thus afforded each patron an opportunity to plan his amusement program ahead. Having saved the theatre managers the expense of a program for each house, they were glad to allow him all the profits of the extensive advertising he secured, and he soon built up a business that netted several thousand dollars a year. PLAN No. 24. SPRAYING FRUIT AND SHADE TREES Every orchardist stands in mortal terror of the multitude of pests that infest both fruit and shade trees in practically all parts of the country, and as but few really understand how to prevent or destroy these persistent plagues, or have the time to do it properly, it affords some one in each community an excellent opportunity to make a good living by doing it for them. All he needs is to know exactly how. An enterprising young man in one of the irrigated fruit districts of the Northwest thought of a good plan along this line and proceeded to put it into execution, with entire satisfaction to the fruit growers, and a corresponding profit to himself. The leading hardware merchant in his town was not only a good friend of the young man, but was thoroughly familiar with all the really effective methods of destroying tree pests through the spraying process. He sold him one of the best makes of spraying machine, gave him accurate instructions as to its use, as well as the various materials for spraying, and advised him to get busy at once. He visited the principal fruit growers of that section and found most of them glad to turn the protection of their trees over to him, as he quickly demonstrated that he knew his business, and his charges were reasonable. In a short time he had contracts to keep him busy during the entire season, and found it was paying him at the rate of $175 a month. The next year he took more contracts, hired boys to operate several spraying machines, and is now clearing over $1,000 for a few months work each year. So can you. [Illustration: Plan No. 24. Spraying Fruit in Spokane Valley] PLAN No. 25. HOME LUNCH DELIVERY A Michigan young lady, who had an invalid mother and a little brother to support, hit upon the novel plan of supplying the families of her neighborhood, as well as nearby cafes, lunch rooms, business offices, stores, and soda fountains, with tempting lunches consisting mainly of nut sandwiches made of shredded wheat biscuit, or bread, or buns, baked by herself. Buying all the materials in large quantities, she secured everything necessary at greatly reduced prices, purchasing English walnuts at so much per hundred pounds, and removing the shells with a nut cracker. Slicing a moistened shredded wheat biscuit in two with a sharp knife, she spread it with peanut butter and finished with a layer of crushed walnuts, or made the sandwiches from slices of bread in the usual way. Having distributed cards throughout the neighborhood, announcing the form of service she was prepared to render, she kept a list of her regular patrons, with the day and hour when deliveries were required, and sent her little brother to fill the orders. Each sandwich was wrapped in wax paper, and sold readily at 5 cents. However, when a more extensive lunch was required, she supplied two ham sandwiches, one cheese sandwich with pie or cake all neatly packed in a small paper box, with paper napkin and tooth pick, which was not only cheaper, but also much better, than the same articles bought at a restaurant. And still there was a fair profit on each item included in this service. Of course, the increased cost of materials, now makes it necessary to charge higher prices for the lunches thus delivered, her patronage has grown to such proportions that she now hires boys on bicycles to make the deliveries. PLAN No. 26. REPAIRING LAWN MOWERS Can you repair a lawn mower that is out of order? If not, you can soon learn, and if you have any mechanical ability at all, you can put it to a practical use and make a good business out of it. An elderly man in a western city, who was regarded as “too old” to be given a salaried position, but who “needed the money,” turned his knowledge of lawn mowers to good account, and to-day has a profitable business that renders it unnecessary for him to ask anybody for a “job.” He made his own job. Of course, he had no capital, but he needed none, except a few dollars for the purchase of certain small tools and lawn mower parts and a friend of his in a hardware store sold him those on time. Starting out he was surprised to find how many lawn mowers in any given neighborhood were slightly out of order, the main trouble with most of them being that they merely needed sharpening, while a rusty bolt here, a missing nut there or a broken part almost anywhere about the machine was quickly replaced, and the mower put in fine working shape. A charge of 50 to 75 cents an hour, or a flat rate for the job, netted him a profit of several dollars a day, and by doing good, honest work, he was usually called upon when anything else went wrong, as he left his card at every house he visited. After a couple of years he was able to open a little shop of his own, and had the work come to him, instead of being obliged to go after it. He is making a comfortable living for himself and his family and doesn’t feel any longer that he is “too old” to be useful and self-supporting. PLAN No. 27. THE INKLESS PEN Never heard of an inkless pen? Well, you can make one, or a thousand, so easily, and sell them so fast, at a splendid profit, that you will wish you had known how a long time ago. A down-east girl learned how it was done, and she has made a lot of money out of it, just as anyone else can by trying. She got some of the very best quality of violet aniline, and reduced it with water, to a thick paste. She added about half as much mucilage as there was of the aniline and water, and mixed it thoroly. Then she applied it with a toothpick to the inside hollow of several ordinary steel pens, above the split, and laid them aside for ten hours to dry. Either a fine-pointed, ordinary or stub pen can be used, but as an advertising leader a fine-pointed pen is best, and to give it a neat appearance, the pen should be inclosed in a very small envelope, with directions for use printed thereon, as follows: “The Wonderful Inkless Pen. Put in a penholder, and dip it in water up to the split, when ink will flow from the pen. When flow ceases, dip in water again.” She then placed a small ad in the paper, saying, “Boys and girls, send ten cents for three of our wonderful inkless pens. Write by dipping in water. No ink necessary. Better than a fountain pen.” This brought hundreds of answers, all containing dimes, and the business thus launched in a small way, with practically no capital, finally grew into an enterprise netting nearly $1,000 a year. PLAN No. 28. OLD BARN MAKES $600 A YEAR How a plucky woman, with an invalid husband and two small children, utilized a rickety old barn on a run-down farm eleven miles from a city, is best told in her own words: “The old barn had not been used for years, and was in a dilapidated condition indeed. I paid $1.25 for new shingles and 5 cents for nails, and fixed the roof so it would not leak. I found some old hinges around the place, and put on the doors in good shape. There were six windows, and I bought $1.80 worth of cheese cloth and made curtains for these, and paid $7.00 for a crex matting to put on the floor. “From some old furniture we were not using, I selected some chairs, beds, a table, old cupboard, and other articles needed. The three stalls I converted into a kitchen, dining room and den, and paid $2.75 for an old oil stove, $1.30 for cooking utensils, and $2 for crockery ware. “I converted the loft into two sleeping rooms, using cretonne curtains for partitions, made a dresser from an old packing box, and above it I placed a cheap mirror, 18x12 inches. I also purchased two hammocks for $3, and was ready to let “apartments” at $20 per month, the tenants to furnish their own bedding and silver. “I planted morning glories all around this “house,” and put in several beds of California poppies, costing 65 cents, so that the total expenses renovating the barn and making it fit for human habitation were just $19.80. “A small ad. in the paper quickly brought me a renter for the remodeled “apartments” at $20 per month for six months, and then I began to supply my tenants with home-grown produce, at good prices, such as berries, fresh vegetables, fresh bread, pies and cakes, cottage cheese, cream, milk, eggs, poultry, homemade soap, jellies, jams, etc., besides doing laundry work, renting horse and cart, making dresses and bonnets for tenants, neighbors and others. And all this without interfering with my regular work of growing and marketing my poultry, dairy and garden products, which I took to the city on the weekly market days, and sold for good prices. “The first year on this place netted me over $500, the second year $600, and it will be more this year. My first tenant has re-rented the old barn from me every year since I started, and wants it again next year, so I am no longer worrying as to where the next meal is coming from. “Besides, the country air and home-grown foods have restored my husband to perfect health, and my children are getting big enough to help me.” PLAN No. 29. BAKING FRUIT CAKE TO SELL Who doesn’t love fruit cake? And yet how few can make it as it should be made. A lady who really knew how, found that she could make a fruit cake at a cost of about 10 cents a pound, and make it so good that anybody would be glad to buy it at more than three times its cost. She used the following receipt. Two cups of flour, 1 cup of raisins, 1 cup of currants, one-half cup of lard, 1 cup of sugar, 1 teaspoonful cinnamon, 1 teaspoonful of cloves, 1 teaspoonful of soda, ¹⁄₄ teaspoonful of salt; flavor with lemon extract. These, with the exception of the flour, the soda and the extract, she boiled for a few minutes in an agate-ware sauce-pan, then took it off the fire, and when lukewarm mixed in the flour and soda and added the lemon extract. This, baked one hour in a moderate oven, will make a 2¹⁄₂-pound loaf, and, requiring no eggs or butter, is not expensive. She found her first customers were steady customers, and tho she had very limited baking facilities, she cleared from $25 to $30 a month. With greater baking capacity, added from time to time, and with the aid of a few small ads, she increased her profits gradually, until now she is realizing a net profit of over $100 a month, and expects soon to do even better than that. Just a simple plan, intelligently carried out, and the result was--success. PLAN No. 30. LAWYER MAKES MUNICIPAL COLLECTIONS In nearly all cities of 75,000 to 150,000 population, there are usually many thousands of dollars due the municipality in old claims, unpaid assessments, and all sorts of overlooked accounts in practically all departments. These have been allowed to accumulate until they amount to a sum large enough to materially reduce the tax levy for several years, but incoming administrations, having all the difficulties incident to their own tenures of office to meet, and having no disposition to overcome the shortcoming of their predecessors, pay no attention to these delinquencies, and the city’s debtors are thus allowed to escape payment of bills they justly owe. It was under such conditions in a well known city of the Pacific Northwest that a young lawyer, just admitted to practice, discovered a field of activity that promised to bring him prominently into public notice, and at the same time to secure him a revenue that but few young attorneys are able to command in several of the earlier years of their practice. He had previously examined the records in most of the departments, and thereby gained a close estimate of the enormous amounts still due the city on old accounts, which no effort had been made to collect for so long that many of them were outlawed and not legally collectable. He then interviewed a number of city officials and submitted a proposition to collect these accounts, on a basis of commission dependent upon the relative difficulty of getting the money. His proposition was accepted. A closer examination of the records showed that the amounts still due the various departments ranged from $13,000 to $60,000 in each, the aggregate being $200,000. Having carefully laid his plans, his first step was to have himself interviewed by the city hall reporters of all the daily papers, in which he made it clear that he would bring suit against every one of those who owed the city anything on old accounts. This caused considerable uneasiness among the delinquents, many of whom came to the treasurer’s office and made settlements in full. Many of them, however, hung back, awaiting developments, and thereupon the young attorney brought a number of suits in the city’s name, in all of which he secured judgments against the defendants, and nearly all of them were paid. In some special cases, where the debtors felt that they were safe, since the claims against them had been barred by the statute of limitations, the attorney, called upon the parties in person and gave them so fair an outline of the entire situation, laying special emphasis upon their moral obligation to pay even an outlawed claim, that more than half of those old claims were paid into the city treasury. There are hundreds of cities in which other young attorneys can follow the same plan, with equally good results. PLAN No. 31. BRIEF-WRITING FOR LAWYERS [Illustration: Plan No. 31. Lawyer puts Dictaphone to Profitable Use] A far-sighted young attorney in a large city, desiring to extend his acquaintance among the older members of the bar, and at the same time add materially to his rather limited income, figured that he could do both by writing the briefs of those lawyers interested in cases taken to the higher courts on appeal. He purchased a dictaphone and, having familiarized himself with a case, by reference to the files, and otherwise, he found it an easy matter to get the attorney’s consent to brief it in proper form, especially when he could do it for considerably less than it would cost the attorney to do it himself. This plan brought him an immediate financial return, gave him a large acquaintance among leading lawyers, and vastly increased his knowledge of law, through frequent references to supreme court reports and other authorities. It also aided him in building up a practice which has become both permanent and profitable. PLAN No. 32. RENTING WATER FILTERS For more than three years a man in a western city realized a net profit of $225 a month, through the very simple plan of renting water filters, and then sold out his business for $5,000. Having a little spare money he bought filters by the gross from the manufacturers, at $12.50 per gross, or a fraction over 12 cents apiece. They were the reversible kind, filled with powdered charcoal and crushed granite, were nickel plated, easily kept clean, and caught all the impurities in the water leaving it clean and pure. He bought the filtering material, charcoal and crushed granite, by the barrel, at a cost of about $6.00 a barrel. These materials he mixed in equal parts, placed them in the filters and was ready for business. [Illustration: Plan No. 32. Pure Water his First Thought] An epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in his city about that time, the cause of which was found to be in the water supply, and the means of excluding the disease germs from the water that came from the faucets assumed the form of an imperative demand. This man had some circulars printed, calling attention to the efficiency of his filters, and sent boys to distribute them all over the city. Then agents were sent out to the houses to show the filters and offer them for rent at 10 cents each a month, a fresh filter to be installed every month. The agents were given one-half of all the money they collected, and as nine in every ten households gave them contracts, both agents and originator of the plan realized a steady and handsome income. At the end of the month the agent would call at each house, take off the old filter, attach the other end to the faucet, set a clean glass under it, turn on the water and show the lady a glass filled with impurities. That would settle it. She would at once hand over another 10 cents for a fresh filter, and the agent would proceed to the next house. Between 5,000 and 6,000 filters were thus kept rented, the old ones refilled with fresh material, and the man who used this plan and a little money not only saved hundreds of lives, but cleared up over $13,000 for himself in three years’ time. PLAN No. 33. CLIPS PERSONAL NOTICES FROM NEWSPAPER Not the big press clipping bureau, with its elaborately furnished offices and scores of employes, but one which any energetic young man or woman may start in a small way, and earn more than a comfortable living, while increasing the scope and revenues of the business. Here is how a bright young fellow did it: Realizing the pride and vanity many people feel in seeing their names in print, and calculating on their curiosity as well, he subscribed for a number of papers in near-by cities and towns, and pays particular attention to the personal paragraph columns of them all. He carefully notes the name and address of any person named in these paragraphs and sends him or her a letter stating that their name was mentioned in a newspaper on a certain day, adding that it might be of interest to the person named, and that he will send the clipping for 25 cents. Curiosity alone will impel most people to send the small amount required to obtain the article in question and this young man received seven orders and remittances from every ten letters he mails out. To mail fifty letters per day would cost him $1 for postage, and to fill the thirty-five orders received, $1.05 more, or a total expense of $2.05. He would receive $8.75, and his profit would be $6.70 a day. PLAN No. 34. PUBLISHING A COOK BOOK There are cook books and cook books, but we know of only one in which thousands of housewives, who contributed recipes to it, took that deep personal interest which made them feel that each one positively must buy a copy of it. This one was thought out by a young man in a middle western state, and literally “takes the cake”--and the cash. If there is any place where the ordinary woman likes to see her name in print, outside of the society columns of a Sunday newspaper, it is in a book, and especially in a cook book. This young man was aware of this fact, and out of his knowledge he evolved a plan that paid him many thousands of dollars. First, he obtained from directories and mailing lists the names of several thousand women, and mailed to each one a letter, stating that he was about to publish a cook book, and asking them to send in such recipes as they personally knew to be exceptionally good. He told them that each woman so contributing would be paid a royalty, based upon actual sales of the book, and also have her name and address printed in it. The price of the book was to be $2.00 per copy, but those contributors willing to waive all claims to royalty would be supplied at $1.00 per copy. He also offered each contributor a commission of 50 cents on every sale of the book she made. The letter was carefully written, and brought answers and recipes in a perfect avalanche, practically all the letters contained orders for a book, so that he knew it would require 10,000 copies to fill all the orders. Then he got busy with the national advertisers, manufacturers of, and dealers in, kitchen specialties, household supplies, flour and yeast dealers, etc., and, having proved to them that his first edition would be 10,000 copies, he secured advertising enough to pay the entire cost of publishing the book. PLAN No. 35. GOOD SAFETY RAZORS FOR 25 CENTS You know, as does everybody else, that $5.00 is too much for any safety razor ever made. A western man who found himself a cripple for life, and had to earn his living or starve, perfected a plan for supplying the best kind of a safety razor for 25 cents, and made a permanent income for himself and family. He wrote a good circular letter, in which he asked the reader to send in his old safety razor, no matter what its make or condition, together with 25 cents, and said that upon its receipt, with 4 cents in stamps to prepay postage, he would send a new safety razor that would give excellent service and be durable, the handle triple-silver plated and highly polished and one Swedish steel blade, well tempered and hand-honed, while extra blades would be supplied at 15 cents for three, postpaid. He bought safety razors of the kind described, for about 7¹⁄₂ cents each, and made a profit of 17¹⁄₂ cents on each one. A set of these blades cost him, with postage, about 7 cents, and his profit on them was 8 cents. PLAN No. 36. LISTS OF NAMES FOR ADVERTISERS Supplying reliable lists of names to magazine advertisers and others would not at first be regarded as a very profitable business, but here is the experience of an Illinois man who made it pay well: Studying the advertisements in the magazines, he thought of how much these advertisers could save if they were only brought into direct contact with the class of people each one was trying to reach at so great an outlay as magazine space involves. He thought of a way in which it could be done. He had learned that he could buy the 400-page edition of Webster’s dictionary for 11 cents each with postage of 4 cents each, or a total of 15 cents, in quantities. Then he inserted, through an agency, an ad. in all the country papers for quite a distance around, offering to send a handsome dictionary free in return for a little information which anyone could easily give. The answers came so fast that he was obliged to send mimeographed letters to those who replied, in which he asked for the names and addresses of all those in the community who were suffering from rheumatism, deafness, or any chronic ailment; also the names of property owners, horse and cattle owners, people with lawns, fruit trees, porches; the names of mothers, prospective mothers, newly married couples, etc., and stated if the information so given proved authentic, he would later arrange to pay them on a cash basis for other names, though the dictionary would be sent for the first lists. Thousands of names were obtained in this way, and he proceeded to typewrite them, making ten carbon copies of each list, fifty names to the sheet. He then wrote to each of the advertisers to whom the lists would be valuable, stating that he had obtained the names through his own correspondents in various communities, and offering to send them 1,000 names of those who would be interested in the advertiser’s line, for $5, or 500 names for $3.50. He invited a trial order first, in order that they might test his service, and nearly all of them responded. In fact, he received more orders than he could well take care of, and the usual result of one day’s work was a net profit of $70. He then branched out on a larger scale, using various articles as premiums. And this man who had been a clerk on a small salary for years, had only enough money when he started to pay for his advertisement, buy postage stamps, and purchase a typewriter on the instalment plan. He “used his plan”--and won. He never sold the same list to two concerns in the same line. [Illustration: Plan No. 37. Auto Inspector at Work] PLAN No. 37. AUTO INSPECTION SERVICE “I was a fair auto mechanic, familiar with the mechanism of every machine on the market,” said a man who is now a prosperous dealer in a western city. “But I was out of work, and could not get the kind of job I wanted, so I decided to make one for myself. And I did. “I called upon some twenty well-to-do owners of cars who did their own driving, but who were not able to locate or remedy many of the little troubles that are certain to happen to all machines, and told them that for $1 per week I would spend an hour each week in their garages, inspecting their autos, adjusting such parts as were even slightly out of order, and doing all small repairs, but furnishing none of the materials required; that I would do square, honest work, and thereby save them many dollars. All but two of these men accepted my offer, and were so well pleased with the results that I soon had a list of fifty regular patrons, and was easily making my $50 a week and more, without the investment of a single cent, except what I had paid for my kit of tools. “Of course, for extra work I made a reasonable additional charge, and later I arranged with a supply house to furnish me with extra parts of equipment, which netted me a nice little profit besides my regular income as auto inspector.” PLAN No. 38. A 5c AND 10c GROCERY STORE Of course, everybody knows all about the 5- and 10-cent notion stores that have made millionaires of their owners, but who ever heard, until now, of a 5- and 10-cent grocery store? One man, who lives in a good-sized western city, had never heard of such a thing, but one day the idea came to him, and he tried it out--and made it win. He rented a small but neat store room in a good location, on a well traveled street, put up shelves on both sides and set a nice show case in the center. There were no counters. Then he went to the head of a leading wholesale grocery house and had them put up a special line of all their goods that were not perishable, in handsomely printed cartons, in quantities that could be retailed at 5 and 10 cents each, and still pay both the wholesaler and the retailer a small but fixed margin of profit. He made a similar arrangement with a well known and popular packing company to handle its products in the same manner, while a local cannery was only too glad to obtain the publicity this method afforded. Inside and on top of the showcase were displayed bottled goods, preserves, jellies, flavoring extracts, candies, toilet specialities, soaps, etc., while the shelves were used for a convenient arrangement of cereals, rice, hominy, beans, teas, coffee, and most of the canned goods. As soon as his doors were opened, he discovered that he had “picked a winner,” for the neat and tasty display of the various articles and the fact that they could be had in the small quantities many people desired, made a hit with the women of the neighborhood, and the enterprising originator of this novel plan came out at the end of the year with a net profit of several thousand dollars. PLAN No. 39. STORING SCREENS It would hardly seem that the mere storing of door and window screens during the winter season, when they are not needed and are in the way, would prove profitable, but an old gentleman in a West Virginia town earns many good dollars through that plan, and others might follow his example with profit. [Illustration: Plan No. 39. Work that Anyone can do] A spare room, or a barn loft, where there is no leakage from the roof, is all that is required to get into the business. This man has about 300 customers, for whom he removes the screens in the fall and stores them carefully away, properly ticketed, so as not to get them mixed up with other people’s screens. In the spring he takes them back to their respective owners and replaces them. His charge for the season is about $2.00 for the average house but where the screens are to be repainted, he of course makes an extra charge for that service. To be sure, this income is small, but it is $600 or more every spring or fall, and six hundred dollars extra often means a great addition to the comfort of an old man. PLAN No. 40. BUTTON-HOLE MAKING A lady living in a city of the Middle West had by long practice become an expert button-hole maker, and so great was her skill that she had more calls for her special work than she could fill. Dressmakers, tailors, department stores, housewives who made their own dresses, all were anxious to secure her services in this particular line, and she derived a very comfortable income from this specialty. Recently she has organized several classes of young ladies to whom she is teaching the art, as she realizes that she cannot continue to make all the good button-holes required in her community, and is anxious to give others a chance to do some of this work. In these days of specializing, why not a button-hole specialist--especially if it pays? PLAN No. 41. TYPEWRITING AT HOME A young lady typist who was obliged to give up her position, in order to take care of her invalid mother, arranged with a business man to write his letters in payment for the use of his type-writing machine. Then she addressed letters to a number of other business men, offering to do their stenographic work and typewriting at her home, and in a short time had work that brought her better returns than her former salary had been, besides being able to look after her sick mother. PLAN No. 42. RAISING ANGORA CATS An ambitious mother, who very much desired to send her daughter to college, decided upon cat culture as a source of raising the necessary funds. She paid $25 for a pair of pure-bred Angora kittens, gave them the best of care and in three years these kittens and their progeny have netted her more than $1,000. But her resourcefulness in providing charming surroundings assists her greatly in the important matter of sales. She enclosed the back yard of her home with chicken wire, and divided it into two sections--one for colored cats and the other for white cats--with low buildings on each side for comfortably housing the mother cats and kittens. The yard was then planted with roses and other flowers, and when the well-kept cats and kittens are seen by prospective purchasers in those delightful environments, the effect is so appealing to their sense of the beautiful that the buyers freely pay almost any price. A few small ads in the local papers bring her customers for all the cats she can raise. Just a little plan, but it has brought remarkably pleasing results. PLAN No. 43. MANAGEMENT OF SOCIAL FUNCTIONS A young lady who found herself dependent upon a married sister, decided that she would create a profession of her own and be under no obligations to anyone. She distributed a number of her business cards among the society leaders of her town, announcing that she would take complete charge of parties and other social events, whether for grown people or children, and relieve the hostess of all anxiety concerning the success of the affair, besides saving considerable sums in the outlay for the occasion. She was given a number of engagements, and succeeded so well that her services were soon in constant and ever-increasing demand. She superintended the decorations, arranged the menu, looked after the comfort of each guest, and saw that all were served in a manner to meet their hearty approval. She also planned all the details of the entertainment, in whatever form, and became a positive necessity, as the various hostesses soon learned that she could not only provide a better program than they, but actually saved more in the matter of expenditure than her services cost, which varied all the way from $5.00 to $15.00 for an afternoon or evening. PLAN No. 44. NEW WAY TO SELL SHEET MUSIC A young lady in Ohio, who recently graduated from a music school, has originated a novel and profitable method of selling sheet music. Realizing from her own experience that the surest way to cause anyone to want a particular piece of music is to let them hear it properly played, so she arranged with a leading music dealer to allow her a rather liberal commission on all sales she might make. She then selects a number of the best pieces, and ringing the bell at the first house she approaches, and asks if there is a piano or an organ in the house. If the answer is yes, she asks if she may come in and play a piece of music. In most cases permission is freely given, and seating herself at the instrument proceeds to play two or three of the selections. She has chosen so well, and plays so beautifully, that in nearly every house where she is accorded the privilege of playing, she sells from one to half a dozen or more of the sheets, and goes on to the next house. She has often made as high as $50 a week by employing this plan. PLAN No. 45. SUPPLYING CLEAN TOWELS Here is a plan which is good for a town where there are a large number of offices. A young woman who lived in a town of this kind made it pay. She visited the various offices in the place and contracted to furnish each one with a clean, fresh towel every day for $1.50 a month, or two towels per day for $2.50 a month, two deliveries to be made each week. She secured contracts enough to bring in $47.00 a month. She then bought $25.00 worth of good towels, hired a colored woman to come twice a week to wash and iron the towels, and paid a little boy to deliver the fresh towels and collect the soiled ones. The service proved satisfactory, and, although the enterprise netted the young lady only a little over $30 per month, she found it sufficient to support herself and her invalid mother, as they owned their home and were economical in their expenditures. It left the young lady with her entire time at her own disposal to be devoted to other work. [Illustration: Plan No. 46. Baby’s First Picture] PLAN No. 46. TAKING CHILDREN’S PICTURES Getting the children interested, and working on your side of a proposition, is the surest way to reach the pocketbooks of the parents. An Iowa man, who was out of work and money, evolved a plan that worked so well that he has been at it ever since. He owned a good camera, and understood how to use it, and having tried soliciting orders from house to house, without success, he hit upon the plan of borrowing a team of goats and a small cart from a boy friend, and started out. Whenever he saw a child, he would stop and tell it that he would give it a free ride, and take its picture in the cart, if it would get the consent of its mother. Of course, all the children got busy right away, and called their mothers to come and see how “cute” they looked in the cart drawn by the goats. The result was that nearly every mother was glad to give an order for a dozen or more pictures to be delivered in three days, and the enterprising artist soon found that he had all the business he could attend to, at good prices, and now owns a complete outfit. A young lady in a city who was quite expert in the use of a camera called at the homes which had children and took their pictures, usually with the mother and baby in some natural position. She obtained the birth records and forwarded a card each month congratulating her, also called attention to the service she was rendering by taking the pictures of children, stating that she would call in a few days--also said the mother took no obligation because of her call. She then called as early as possible to get the first picture of the new baby. PLAN No. 47. TAUGHT CARE OF THE HAIR Most people have hair troubles of some kind, and most of them have used the widely advertised hair tonics, restorers, etc., with but little appreciable benefit, as some simple home preparation usually produces the best results. Now, you have read in scores of household magazines, and elsewhere of ways without number in which the hair can be beautified and its growth and lustre wonderfully promoted, without the risk of injuring it in any way. A widow lady in an eastern city collected all the formulas of this kind she could find anywhere for making dry, brittle hair soft and glossy, for preventing and stopping the hair from falling out, for making the hair thicker and longer, for the removal of dandruff, and correcting all other forms of hair trouble. These she had printed, each on a separate slip of good paper, and also provided herself with neat stationery. She then advertised in a number of newspapers that covered the territory for 200 or 300 miles in every direction, stating that she had formulas for every conceivable form of hair trouble, and that particulars would be sent upon request. She received thousands of answers, and in reply to these she sent a circular letter saying she had a formula for the particular difficulty named in the inquiry, which she would send upon receipt of 50 cents, and the person to whom it was sent could have it put up under her own personal direction, thus knowing exactly what it contained. As many of these preparations can be put up from ingredients to be found in most homes, they are not expensive and the lady built up a very profitable business through this method. PLAN No. 48. MAKING HARNESS DRESSING Every farmer will buy a good, reliable waterproof harness dressing, and if you know how to make it, you can sell it rapidly. A young man who had spent most of his life on the farm found himself stranded in the city, and when a friend gave him the recipe for such a dressing, he bought the materials with his last few pennies and began selling it to the farmers. He realized such a good profit from his first sales that he was soon able to make it on a much more extensive scale, and started on a trip through the country, where he sold it to farmers he called upon. Here is the formula: Petrolatum, 4 pounds; Burgundy pitch, 4 ounces; rosin, 2 ounces; ivory black (dry), 60 ounces; beeswax, 4 ounces. He melted the rosin, pitch and beeswax together, then added the petrolatum, and when melted, he stirred in the ivory black, stirring it until cold, when he put it up in tin boxes and pasted a printed label on it. This preparation is applied with the fingers or a soft cloth, and rubbed well into the leather, on both sides and edges, after thoroughly washing the leather with softsoap and water, and letting it dry. It imparts a nice black appearance to the leather, but not a high polish, and renders the leather soft and pliable. Used as a shoe dressing, it makes shoes waterproof, so that one does not need rubbers. To test it, he would, after applying it, soak the leather in water for a few hours, weighing it both before and after soaking, and thus prove that no water had been absorbed. PLAN No. 49. BOOK THAT COSTS NOTHING SELLS FOR 98 CENTS This man clothed an old idea in a new dress, greatly improved upon it, and made it a permanent, paying business. He got twenty merchants, in different lines, to pay him $5.00 each for a page ad. in a book, and spent the $100 thus received in having 2,000 copies of it printed. Then he sold the 2,000 copies for 98 cents each, or a total of $1,960. But who is going to buy a book with nothing in it except twenty pages of ads, do you ask? Answer: 2,000 people. Why? Every advertiser in that book has agreed to give a certain discount on every item he sells to the person who has bought that book--the furniture man giving 10 per cent off, the hardware man 5 or 10 per cent, the dry goods man 12 or 15 per cent, the grocer 2¹⁄₂ per cent, and so on--every one offering a discount that in the aggregate means a saving of $100 or more a year--to the buyer of the book. And the book that entitles these people to so great a saving on their purchases costs only 98 cents! Will people buy the book? Does 98 cents look bigger to most people than $100, or possibly $200? Of course the books sell, every last one of them, and the enterprising publisher gets nearly $2,000 net out of it, the merchants get a whole year’s splendid advertising among people who want to buy from them, for $5.00 each, and the printer gets $100 for putting out the book. PLAN No. 50. TYPEWRITING SHORT STORIES BY MAIL In these days of an ever-increasing demand for short stories by hundreds of old and new magazines, when thousands of aspiring young authors are reaching out for fame and fortune, it is but natural to assume that but few of them are familiar with the form in which manuscripts are required to be submitted. In practically all cases manuscripts must be typewritten, and young people all over the country who do not own typewriters, and could not use them if they did, are always glad to have this done for them. A young lady who was a skilled typist realized this fact, and at once inserted a few ads. in a small number of papers reaching this class of people, to the effect that she would do this work for them at reasonable prices, and turn out her work in the high class manner required by publishers. She excelled in spelling, punctuation, paragraphing, etc., and felt certain of her ability to do satisfactory work. She received many replies to her advertisements, and in a few months had established a pleasant and profitable business of her own besides having placed many ambitious young authors in a position to present their manuscripts to publishers in acceptable form, thereby greatly increasing the chances of acceptance. Any young person, man or woman, who possesses the ability of this young lady, can do equally well by following the same plan of doing satisfactory work at fair prices. PLAN No. 51. OPENING A GIFT SHOP A widow, who was left with some very good furnishings and about $200 in cash, resolved to make an opportunity of her own and improved it to such excellent advantage that she made a satisfactory living by following a definite plan and the exercise of an unusual amount of good taste. Renting a small but attractive down-town store room, she fitted it up with the furnishings of her home, imparting to the place a decidedly cozy effect, and she printed some 500 cards, which she sent out by mail, paying regular letter postage on each. These contained an invitation to visit her “Many Happy Returns Shop,” where rare gifts, suitable for all occasions, could be purchased at prices ranging from 10 cents to $10 each. She further intimated that an inspection of her wares would prove extremely interesting even to those who did not come in to buy. Living only a short distance from New York, she went to the city and, visiting the Italian and Syrian districts, she purchased many pieces of old brass, trays, pots, lanterns, etc., while in the Japanese quarters she bought odd bits of china and lacquer, in all fifty articles, costing her $30. She also asked her friends to bring in odd or rare articles for her to sell on commission, and arranged everything very tastefully for her opening day, when large numbers of people visited her store and many of the novelties were sold at good prices. Her first day’s sales netted her $7.66, and by constantly adding to her stock of rarities and other attractions, she enjoyed a steady and substantial income. PLAN No. 52. COUPONS TO AID SALES “A friend of mine,” said a successful merchant, not long ago, “was making and selling--or trying to sell--three preparations of great merit, but with such indifferent success that he decided to give it up. “I knew the value of his preparations, and concluded that his failure was due to himself rather than to them. I, therefore, outlined a plan for him that I thought would bring success, and loaned him the money with which to make another try at it. “I had 1,000 circulars printed, to each of which were attached twenty coupons of the face value of 5 cents each. I then got ten merchants to agree to accept one of these 5-cent coupons at its face value on every dollar’s worth of merchandise purchased for cash, and gave the names of these merchants on the circular, with their agreement to accept the coupons as above stated. “The regular price of my friend’s preparations was 50 cents each, but I told him to offer the three for $1.00, and give each purchaser $1.00 worth of the coupons besides. “The way the buyers went for those preparations, when offered in this way, was simply amazing, as they got the three preparations for nothing, since the various merchants gave them back the dollar they had paid for the coupons, and the merchants themselves were well pleased with the effective advertising the plan had given them, since it brought each of them many new patrons. “But the best part of it was that my friend not only sold this first $1,000 worth of coupons, but a good many thousand more, and gladly repaid my loan in a day or two. Besides, it established his remedies permanently, as people had found out in this way how good they were.” PLAN No. 53. WOMAN PACKS TRUNKS A woman left totally unprovided for by her husband, a commercial traveler who died suddenly, had to provide for herself and family. Discussing with her friends what she could do to make a living, one suggested that she pack trunks for people who did not know how. She had always packed her husband’s trunks. She acted on this suggestion, and made arrangements with a large hotel to pack trunks for its guests. She furnished bonds to amply protect guests against loss. [Illustration: Plan No. 53. Her Husband was a Traveling Man] There are many hotels and travelers throughout the country that would be glad to avail themselves of such assistance. PLAN No. 54. VEGETABLES BY PARCEL POST Our friend the suburban gardener, lives several miles from the city, where he has about three acres of ground in cultivation, and knows how to make it pay--via parcel post. He knows that the city man likes nice, fresh, crisp vegetables, right from the soil the day he gets them, and that he will pay a good price for them, besides saving the unwilling tribute he pays the city middleman for dried up, shriveled and often spoiled market stuff, that may be a week old. And the gardener gets more for his produce when he sells it direct to the city consumer. So he runs a small ad. in the city papers, stating what he has for sale, that they are strictly fresh, and the prices he asks. From one or two regular customers at first, he gradually increases his list of patrons, until he has more than a hundred upon whom he can depend as steady buyers of his products. He plays fair with them, gives them exactly what he advertised, with prompt delivery that assured their arrival in fine condition--so he builds up a business. Three times a week he sends postal cards to his customers advising them that tomorrow it will be fresh, crisp radishes, or sweet, juicy young onions or tender, luscious asparagus or rhubarb, or any other of a dozen or more delightfully appetizing things grown in the garden, with the price of whatever it is, to be sent by parcel post so as to reach the city customer the same day. Who wouldn’t buy from a man who did business in that way, and rendered the service that everyone appreciates. But the supply of the suburban gardens is never greater than the demand, and thousands more can find health, plenty and happiness in this pleasant and profitable occupation. Why not be one of them yourself? PLAN No. 55. FARMERS’ SUPPLY BUREAU This young man lived in a city of about 7,000 inhabitants, where there were several wholesale houses, as well as a large number of up-to-date retail stores. The town was in the midst of a prosperous farming community, where the farmers were kept busy at home looking after their crops, and had but little time for coming to town. One day this enterprising young man had an idea, which proved to be a good one, for it enabled him to make a good living. He secured the name of every farmer living on every rural route running out of the city, and sent him a well printed circular letter, offering to make purchases for him of anything he might need in town, and send it out to him by parcel post the very day the order was received. He added that no charge would be made for this service, but that the farmer would get exactly what he desired, at the same price he would pay if he came to the city himself. He then arranged with wholesale and retail merchants to pay him a commission on all articles sold for them in this way, besides paying the postage, and inside of three months he had one hundred well-to-do farmers on his list who, instead of coming to town for what they wanted, phoned their orders to him, and they were filled so promptly and satisfactorily that the farmers placed absolute confidence in him and allowed him to make practically all their purchases for them. He proved a good shopper, and built up a profitable business by just thinking out a feasible and legitimate plan. PLAN No. 56. A SUPERB TABLE RELISH The very best table relish it is possible to make is prepared from the following formula by a woman living in the country, who has created for it a demand far greater than she can supply. Here are the ingredients: Ripe tomatoes, 9 pounds; onions, 2 pounds; cider vinegar, 3 pints; cayenne pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls; black pepper, 4 ounces; brown sugar, 6 ounces. She mashes the tomatoes thoroughly, peels and grinds the onions in a vegetable grinder, then places all the ingredients in a porcelain vessel and boils them briskly for about two hours. Then she places them in short half pint water bottles, costing about half a cent each, cuts off the corks close to the bottles and seals with sealing wax. One taste of this relish invariably creates a demand for more, and she can sell it as fast as she can put it up, and have many calls for more. There is a fine margin of profit in it, as she raises practically all the materials herself, and by making use of the parcel post she has been able to come out over $1,000 ahead each season since she began operations. Lately she has been enlarging the scope of her activities, with the assurance of a much larger income from year to year. Just try this yourselves, you mothers who want to make some money with very little outlay. PLAN No. 57. MONEY FROM A STEREO CAMERA A newly married couple decided to spend their honeymoon in a small Ohio town surrounded by beautiful scenery, and having a stereoscopic camera among their possessions, took it along, as it might come in handy. And it did. They happened to know that they could obtain from a Chicago firm, for 80 cents per hundred, any number of the colored views shown in stereoscopes, and which agents usually sell for $1.50 to $2.00 per dozen, and they ordered twenty sets of 100 each, paying $16.00 for the lot. Then they used their stereoscopic camera in taking a number of views in that vicinity, together with pictures of noted persons, groups of children, grounds and residences of leading citizens, and other objects of local interest. When all was completed, they made a personal canvas of the town exhibiting the colored views to the people, through an ordinary stereoscope, and in this way created a most favorable impression as to the superior character of the work. The sets of 100 colored views were offered at $5.00 each, and, as a premium, six of the local views were added, but they made an extra charge when views of some subject of special interest to the families were ordered taken; and where people had no stereoscope, they ordered one, which made them a good profit. Their work became a popular fad in the town, and they received and filled so many orders that in two months there they cleared over $500. It is not necessary to buy a stereo-camera--an ordinary camera will do. Print two pictures from negative, paste these two on cardboard cut down to proper size, and your picture is complete. PLAN No. 58. A RENTING BULLETIN A young man made use of the following plan to get started in business: Living in a western town of about 10,000 inhabitants, he noted the various cards of “For Sale,” “For Rent,” “Furnished rooms,” “Board and Rooms,” etc., and decided he could help these people get what they wanted, and at the same time make a little sum for himself. He called at each of the places where cards were displayed, explained that he was about to begin the publication of a renting and business bulletin, and would insert an ad. under the proper heading, to remain until the particular want was supplied, and distribute free a certain number of these bulletins all over town each week, all for $1.00 for each of such notices, to be paid in advance. As most of those he approached knew him to be reliable, he had no difficulty in securing a little over 100 subscriptions of the kind desired; then he went among the merchants of the town and contracted for a sufficient amount of advertising to pay the cost of printing the bulletin, leaving him the entire amount received for publication of the “for rent” and other notices as clear profit. He faithfully distributed the bulletins from house to house, in hotels, reading rooms, and barber shops. This gave him a start. He continued to solicit advertisements and worked faithfully at his little publication which gave returns sufficient to make his living. PLAN No. 59. MAKING HENS LAY IN WINTER That grasshoppers, which have been the scourge of many sections of the country for many years, can really be made to serve a useful purpose, and so utilized as to pay at least a part of the damage they do, was proven by the experience of a Kansan woman who had found great difficulty in making her hens lay during the winter months. The grasshopper pest had been unusually active in her part of the country that year, having destroyed practically every growing thing within reach, and her hens were about the only available source of revenue that remained. But how to feed them was the problem she could not solve. Suddenly she became impressed with the fact that the hated grasshopper was an ideal chicken food and tonic, and as other foods and tonics were too expensive for her slender purse, she decided upon laying in a good supply of grasshoppers--but how? They must first be caught. She bought a piece of screen wire 4 feet wide by 20 feet long, bent it lengthwise in a circular form, and fastened the edges with large-size hooks and eyes, with circular doors, working on a single hinge, at each end, fitting the edges closely. She then constructed a frame of 4-inch pine sheathing, 4 feet high and 20 feet long, back of the trap, and covered it with white oilcloth, slanting it in such a position that when the grasshoppers struck the oilcloth they would slip down into the trap. These they carried out into the wheat field one evening in August, placed them in position, and started driving the swarms of grasshoppers toward the pitfall thus prepared for them. The white oilcloth shield proved a great attraction for the hoppers, and in forty-five minutes they had driven four bushels of the insects into the trap. Beneath this they placed a formaldehyde generator, covered the trap with muslin made to fit over it, and soon had it full of dead grasshoppers. These they carried to the barn loft, spread them out to dry, and put them away in sacks. Altogether they got over eighty bushels of dried hoppers, and those hens laid that winter as they had never laid before. PLAN No. 60. MAKING POLISHING CLOTHS A polishing cloth would seem an insignificant thing in itself, and it is, but often it is the little things that make good profit and a man in a western city, who understood this fact, made thousands of dollars by giving it practical application. He bought a bolt of outing flannel of the cheaper grade, and from this he cut a few hundred small pieces of the proper size for samples. These he immersed in a solution which he had made, as follows: One-half pound of castile soap, shaved fine and melted to a jelly. When thoroughly dissolved, he added a gallon of soft water and 4 ounces of powdered pumice stone, coloring it with tincture of red analine. This gave him a polishing cloth that worked wonders with silverware, brass and other bright metals, imparting to them a lustre that but few of the high-priced polishes can give, and doing away with the mussy method of using a powder with an ordinary cloth. Securing a number of good canvassers, he gave each of them 100 of the small samples, 100 full sized polishing cloths, and 100 imitation type-written letters addressed to “The Lady of the House,” asking her to use the small free sample which the agent would leave with her, and note its many points of superiority over polishing powders, etc. Nearly every housewife would use the sample, and be so well pleased with it that when the agent called a couple of days later, with the full-sized cloths, at 25 cents each, it meant a sale in almost every case. The man who made the cloths gave the agents half the proceeds of all sales, and the other half he retained for himself which was practically all profit. By extending his sale to other towns, he developed a big business. PLAN No. 61. SELLING LISTS OF NAMES We know of a man who averaged $40.00 per day through the sale of mailing lists to advertisers all over the country. But they were good, reliable lists of live people, who for years had not been flooded with a tidal wave of advertising circulars. These names he procured from county, town, and other officials, from certain directories, and from private individuals in different parts of the country. In some cases he advertised in country papers, asking for replies from those willing to furnish lists of bonafide names, usually offering some small inducement to secure this service, and the lists thus obtained consisted largely of well-to-do farmers, which proved the most salable of the lists. The various magazines and metropolitan dailies gave him the names of advertisers anxious to reach the class of consumers who comprised his lists, and he sold them for prices ranging from $2.00 to $10.00 per thousand, though in some special cases his charges would be considerably more. Indeed, in one case, where he had secured the names of 5,000 speculators and investors, patrons of the stock exchanges, he asked, and received, $80 for the list, and sold it to many advertisers in various lines. He had his lists typewritten with as many as ten carbon copies to each page, and the expense of supplying them to numerous customers was very trivial, while his receipts netted him a good living each year. PLAN No. 62. THE PROFESSIONAL MAN SHOPPER An elderly man who lived in a small eastern town had formerly been a merchant in the city, but had failed through the dishonesty of a partner, and was obliged to make a humble living by any legitimate means. Being familiar with all the details of buying and selling, as well as with the quality of various kinds of merchandise, he decided to become a professional shopper, and succeeded beyond his expectations. He distributed cards throughout the little town and its vicinity announcing that he would make daily trips to the city, and for a small charge would purchase such articles as might be desired by local people from the big city stores, particularly those advertising “bargain sales.” As most people in a small place know of these bargains, through the columns of the city dailies reaching their places, and would like to take advantage of many of them, yet cannot afford the time and expense of making these frequent trips themselves, they were very glad to have this service so promptly and satisfactorily performed for them by one they knew to be reliable. The elderly shopper soon had all he could attend to. Outside of his fare, his expenses were nothing, and while his charges were so reasonable that it saved his patrons many dollars in railroad fare, as well as a great deal of valuable time, it made him a very comfortable living. He not only received a small sum for his service to each customer, but he received a special discount from the store that filled the order. PLAN No. 63. A THERMOMETER PLAN THAT PAID The vagaries of the weather have never been regarded as affording a living for anyone except the “local forecaster,” but here is the experience of a man in Iowa who thought otherwise, and made money out of the plan. He paid $40 for a large thermometer, all complete, the same being about six feet high, mounted on a frame 3x8 feet, and containing space for fourteen advertisements. These he readily sold to merchants of the town, at $15 for each space, bringing his receipts up to $210, or $170 after paying for the thermometer, and many times he sold the entire fourteen spaces in one day’s work. To be sure, he was obliged to buy the thermometers in quantities, in order to get them for $40 apiece, but as long as he could realize a profit of $170 on each, he could well afford that. As his business increased, his orders for thermometers grew larger and their cost correspondingly smaller, so that he soon found himself on the road to success. He did not give this advertising service in towns of less than 5,000 people, and even if he only sold three thermometers in a week, his income was very good. PLAN No. 64. LETTUCE GROWING, $100,000 A YEAR Some ten years ago two brothers went to a North Carolina town, in the fall of the year, rented a piece of ground near the outskirts, carefully laid it out in large beds, and planted it in lettuce, to be sold to northern markets during the winter months. The inhabitants of the town ridiculed the idea, declaring that the lettuce would freeze when the weather got cold, and even if it grew, it could not be sold at a profit, but the brothers said nothing, for they knew what they were doing. The lettuce, after planting, came up nicely and made a rapid growth, but it wasn’t allowed to be touched by frost. Covers to fit over all the beds were made from coarse cotton sheeting, and held in place by hooks fastened to rings in small stakes driven at the corners and edges of the beds. These covers were taken off when the sun was shining and replaced over the beds at night, when there was frost in the air. Soon the people of the town went out to see how the lettuce crop was growing, and were so astonished at its marvelous growth, and the fabulous prices it brought in the northern cities, that large numbers of the people took up lettuce growing as a regular business. It was not long before the receipts from the lettuce in that town were $100,000 a year, and everybody was growing it; the men in the fields, the women in their gardens, and all making money at it, for the variety was of the best, the soil just right, and all conditions were adapted to its culture. Usually two crops were grown each year, one in the late fall, the other in the early spring, and it was shipped up north in board baskets, where it brought from $1.25 to $3.50 per basket, according to its grade and the condition of the market at the time of its arrival. The people in that town do not laugh any more when lettuce growing in the winter is mentioned, for winter time is harvest time down there. PLAN No. 65. A FUTURE IN SALAD DRESSING An enterprising woman in a western state has made money in home-made salad dressing and peanut butter. She started demonstrating the superior quality of her products in a little corner grocery. She now owns a large building on a prominent street in a city, and sells her produce all over the Northwest. She not only knows all about making the very best salad dressing and peanut butter that anyone could possibly imagine or wish for, but she insists upon a high degree of cleanliness and care in the preparation of her products. Her corps of assistants and employes are selected with a view to maintaining the excellent standard which formed the basis of her own success in the beginning. Other women have excellent recipes for making good things to eat, and, though all of them may not make large incomes from the knowledge and skill they possess, yet they may at least add largely to the family income by making such articles to sell at a good profit, and, at the same time, benefit the consumers as well. PLAN No. 66. COUNTRY PAPER ADVERTISING A young newspaper man perfected a plan under which he took over the advertising of all the weekly papers published within a radius of 100 miles or more from his home town, including those having “patent insides” supplied by the branch of a prominent newspaper union in his town. Arranging these various publications in groups of forty or more, he established a rate for each group that not only offered the advertiser a very great reduction from what it would cost him to deal with all these papers separately, but still left him a good margin of profit. He soon became the head of a prosperous business which yielded a net income of $600 a month. This plan can be worked to good advantage by capable men in other localities, as it requires but little capital to start it. PLAN No. 67. WORKED HER WAY THROUGH COLLEGE It isn’t every girl who feels competent to work her way through college, when her people are not able to pay the expenses of her course, but this one did, and proved it by paying all her bills and having something left besides. Being very proficient in embroidery work, she organized a class of fifty of her fellow-students, to whom she gave a course of twenty embroidery lessons, at $5.00 each for the course, while several of the girls who wished instruction in difficult stitches were each charged $1.00 a lesson. She also took subscriptions for a periodical devoted largely to embroidery and needle work, and received a commission of 25 cents on each subscription she secured. The faculty gave her shopping privileges two afternoons each week, and she improved these occasions by executing commissions at the various stores for the other girl students. She had excellent taste in the matter of selections, and her purchases were not only highly pleasing to those for whom they were made, but she received a discount from each of the merchants thus patronized, and this netted her a neat little sum, her commissions alone in nine months amounting to $260. She also added $90 to her income through the sale of copies of articles contributed to the college journal, and her total earnings for the year were $662.50. The income she derived from these various activities not only relieved her parents of all expense for her education, but gave her a valuable insight into practical business principles and methods, while developing a spirit of confidence in her own abilities, as well as a feeling of independence. PLAN No. 68. $4,800 FOR FIVE CALVES The old saying that “pigs is pigs,” might with equal propriety be applied to calves, particularly if they are of Holstein-Friesian stock, if one is to judge from the experience of a breeder of blooded stock in New York state. From one cow, nine years old, this man has sold five calves for $4,800, has another for which he has refused $500, and still another of her progeny is owned by a man who wouldn’t sell it at any price. This man started as a poor boy, who was obliged to work as a hired hand on a farm, at $10 per month. But the farmer employer did not always have the $10 when the month was up, and really couldn’t afford to keep a hired man, or a boy, though he needed one. However, he did own a pure-bred Holstein calf and the farmer offered this calf to the boy for two months’ work on the farm. The boy had a keen eye for good points of an animal, and accepted the offer, keeping the calf in a small pasture on his employer’s farm until fall when he took it with him to his own humble home and gave it the best of care. Well, that calf was the mother of the nine-year-old cow that was the mother, of the five calves which the “boy” has sold for $4,800, and still has a calf worth more than $500. PLAN No. 69. NIGHT PATROLMAN IN SMALL TOWN A husky young Irishman, who lived in a town too small to maintain a regular police officer, and too large to be entirely without protection from hold-ups, burglars and fires, especially at night, called upon the principal merchants of the place and arranged to give such service as was needed, on a basis of 25 cents a night from each one. Fifteen merchants readily agreed to these terms, and, by remaining on duty every night including Sundays, he was able to earn $26.25 a week. The third night he was on duty he captured a man in the act of stealing. Needless to say, that after this, the other merchants in the town quickly added their names to the young Irishman’s list of protected firms, and his weekly pay-check soon became much larger. PLAN No. 70. HE RAISED DUCKS AND GEESE A small farmer, living a few miles from a city, derived a very handsome income from the raising of ducks and geese. From a long and careful study of various domestic fowls, he had learned that, while ducks and geese are much more rare than chickens, and that many people prefer them as table birds, they eat much less than hens, and the feathers of the geese are always in demand, at top prices. Both ducks and geese are much more hardy than chickens, and not nearly so liable to disease, therefore the losses are not so great. By keeping “Indian Runner” ducks, he got an almost unlimited supply of eggs, which always brought good prices, while during the holiday season the demand for ducks and geese was second only to the demand for turkeys, which are expensive to raise. When he figured up his receipts at the end of the year, he found that each goose had brought him a net profit of $5.75, while the ducks averaged considerably higher, owing to their greater egg-laying capacity. Both classes of birds, when fattened just before Thanksgiving, brought fancy prices, and involved a great deal less labor and expense in their raising than would be required in the case of hens. PLAN No. 71. COLLECTION AGENCY That a smile, a pleasant word and a liberal amount of good humor will succeed better in the collection of accounts than the bullying method, was the idea of a young friend of ours who decided to make Collections a regular business. About all he had with which to make a beginning was a desk, three chairs, a small rug, a second-hand typewriter, and $50 for some printed matter and a month’s office rent. He had arranged with a young lawyer friend of his to attend to whatever litigation might be necessary, and the attorney’s name appear on his letter heads as counsel for the agency. Then he called upon the leading merchants and solicited their accounts, on a basis of 5 per cent on the fairly good ones, and from 24 to 50 per cent on others. In every case where it was possible, he called upon the debtor personally, and possessing a most pleasing and sympathetic manner with which to meet the usual “hard luck” stories he encountered, he was able not only to impress the fact that he was the debtor’s friend but to compel a recognition of the creditor’s rights and equities in the matter. As a result of this method he collected many old accounts that were regarded as hopeless, and made his business pay. In those cases, however, where the debtor was defiant and inclined to not to care he dealt with them judiciously. PLAN No. 72. MAKING AND SELLING RAG RUGS You probably have no idea how many people would pay for rag rugs, to be used in their bathrooms, bedrooms, dining rooms and elsewhere if only some one would make them and sell them from house to house. An old lady in Illinois, who knew all about making rag rugs, as well as rag carpets, and who needed a little money very badly, concluded to use her knowledge of rug making and make a few dollars in the only way she could think of. Her only available resources were a quantity of clean bits of cloth of various hues and textures, some needles and thread. The pieces of cloth she tore into strips of the proper width, and sewed them together, so as to form combinations of blue and white, brown and white, red and black, grey and old rose, etc. and, having no loom with which to weave them, she made them into three-strand braids and sewed them together in oval shape, until she had completed a mat about 2¹⁄₂x3¹⁄₂ feet. Some of these she sold from house to house, at very good prices, while others she displayed in a department store window, where they sold rapidly, though she was obliged to pay the storekeeper a small commission for selling them. She made a very good living at it. PLAN No. 73. PHOTOS AT 39 CENTS A DOZEN It seemed impossible, but here’s the story of a man who did it, and made a good living out of it, also kept four men on the road working at this novel but legitimate plan: He had been a traveling salesman for several years, and on one of his trips had gone into a grocery store, but found another traveling man ahead of him. This man was showing the grocer the details of a plan whereby he could have a photo enlarged for anyone buying a $5 punch-ticket, good for that amount in merchandise, and paying $1.25 additional. Our enterprising friend saw it was a good plan, but believed he could improve upon it, and proceeded to do so. After a long search he finally found a photographer who would make copies of any photograph for 50 cents per dozen, when a large number of orders was given. Then he had several thousand punch-tickets printed, calling for $5 worth of merchandise, and these he sold to merchants at $5 for 500, while the merchant, in turn, would sell the $5 punch-ticket to a customer. Later the originator of the plan opened a small studio of his own, and thus reduced the cost of the photos to 39 cents per dozen, leaving him a profit of 11 cents per dozen, and it was then that he quit the road himself and put four good men on as many routes, while he remained at home and managed his business. PLAN No. 74. REAL “FRESH ROASTED COFFEE” Everybody loves the aroma of fresh roasted coffee, but it is so seldom they have an opportunity to inhale it when it is fresh, that, when they do, it comes as a most delightful sensation, and makes them want coffee--real, genuine, fresh roasted coffee. A coffee-roasting machine, almost automatic in its action, has been perfected to such a degree that it retains all the aroma and flavor of the coffee, and places it, freshly roasted, in the hands of the consumer, who thus “gets all the good out of it.” A young man purchased one of these machines, rented a small corner in a meat and vegetable market, where no groceries were kept for sale, bought a few pounds of the best green coffee, and started his machine, which was run by electricity, and gas for fuel. In the window he placed a neatly painted card, saying: “Fresh Coffee, Right Out of the Roaster,” and awaited results. Soon the delicious aroma pervaded the entire establishment and was wafted to the crowds on the sidewalk. The smell of good coffee is an excellent advertisement and brings customers. But this enterprising vender of fresh roasted coffee realized that even the best brands of coffee would prove a failure if not properly made, so he put every pound he sold into a paper sack containing the following directions, plainly printed, and urged every purchaser to pay particular attention to it. “Use one heaping tablespoonful of the ground coffee to each cup of cold water, not warm or hot, and let it steep in the cold water for five minutes or more, as this greatly improves the flavor. Then put over a slow fire and slowly bring it to the boiling point, boiling it for just three minutes, but no longer. Take off the fire and let it stand for four or five minutes before serving, and you’ll find you have the finest flavored cup of coffee you ever drank. But always use fresh coffee, never using the grounds more than once.” The plan was successful. PLAN No. 75. COLLEGE LAUNDRY AGENCY A young man, attending college in a small town, secured the agency for a leading laundry in a near-by city, and in that way made enough to pay for his entire course. The laundry company paid him 40 percent for all the work he sent in, and one-half of the express charges besides, so that he was at practically no expense in conducting the business. He soon demonstrated that he was representing a laundry that did good work and made prompt deliveries, and it was an easy matter to secure orders from all the students. The city laundry did better work than the local concern, and the prices were also lower, so most of the students, and many residents of the town as well, were glad to have their work done where satisfactory service was assured. In order to overcome the feeble competition offered by local barber shops and store agencies, the young man further strengthened his claim to patronage by offering a premium for each $10 worth of laundry work sent in through him, and by that means came out ahead in the volume of paying business secured. It took but little of his spare time and did not interfere with his studies, and at the same time gave him a good income. PLAN No. 76. CO-OPERATIVE STORE A former merchant in a small town, who had lost his entire stock by fire, and had been unable to collect the insurance, conceived the idea of starting a co-operative store, without capital, and the plan worked so well that in a few years he was in a better condition financially than before the fire. Fully realizing that the average store in the small town charges higher prices for inferior goods than the city stores ask for the better grades, and knowing the people of his community would be glad to be better served at a lower cost, he visited a wholesale house in the city, made arrangements for purchasing groceries and kindred lines at wholesale prices, when taken in considerable quantities. He then formed a sort of club or co-operative society of from 75 to 100 members, among his acquaintances and former patrons, agreeing to supply them with the better grades of goods at prices considerably less than those charged by the local stores. He opened a little store room in the town for the distribution of these goods, each member paying cash for every item purchased, and, there being no necessity for bookkeeping or collections, he made a good profit on everything sold in this manner, suffered no losses, and in a short time controlled practically all the grocery trade in his town and the surrounding country. He often remarked that the fire which destroyed his former store was the best thing that could have happened to him, besides the benefit it brought to those in the community who co-operated with him in his enterprise, while he started on nothing. PLAN No. 77. STARTING A HOSPITAL IN A SMALL TOWN It was a doctor’s wife who, with a husband broken in health and purse, originated a plan that was successful and put the couple financially “on their feet”. The husband, an able physician and surgeon, in a western city, with failing health, decided to move to a country town. His finances were at a low ebb, it soon became necessary for him to resume his practice in this rural community. But he was not physically able to make calls at long distances from town, especially at night and in bad weather, and his wife decided to carry out her long-cherished plan of opening a hospital, even if it had to be done on a small scale. The house next door being vacant, the doctor’s wife engaged it at a low rental, paying for the first month in advance. Then, when a telephone call came for the doctor from a farmer whose wife was ill, the wife told him the doctor was not able to go, but suggested that the farmer bring his wife to town, where his wife would have a pleasant room, the care of an experienced nurse, and the medical services of the doctor. The doctor himself was astonished when he overheard this conversation, and entered a vigorous protest, but the wife told him not to worry. Having engaged the only nurse in the town, which was herself, with the assistance of a couple of farmer’s boys she moved the furniture from the three upper rooms of her own residence into the next house, where she fixed up three rooms very comfortably, and awaited the coming of results. Early in the afternoon the farmer brought his wife and she was installed in one of the rooms, under the care of the nurse. Later others came, and it soon became known all over the community that the “new doctor,” having more patients than he could visit, had fitted up a nice place in town where his patients could come to him, and where women from the country could “stay over night,” or as many days and nights as were necessary, and where they could be nursed and “doctored” in a proper manner. It was not long until further rooms had been tastefully fitted up, another nurse engaged, and the doctor was kept busy with his patients every minute of the day. With the assistance of a maid, the doctor’s wife served meals to the patients in their own rooms, and the charges for all these accommodations, room, board, nursing and treatment, were very reasonable. The people of the town and vicinity soon saw the advantages afforded by this plan, and the patronage increased until there was a long waiting list. The reception or social room that had been fitted up was supplied with magazines, newspapers, and other means of entertainment for the patients and their friends who called upon them, and was a much appreciated resting place for country women who came to town with their husbands. The rent of the building was $15 a month, the nurses were paid $1.00 a day and board, $3 for taking care of a patient at night, and farm produce was purchased at very low prices, or taken as part payment for services. At the end of the first year these people had cleared $5,000 over all expenses, and on the fourth anniversary of the launching of the plan, the doctor, now restored to health, handed his wife a check for $8,000, to repay her, as he said, for “thinking of such a splendid plan.” PLAN No. 78. MAKING A SODA FOUNTAIN PAY She was a druggist’s wife, and had some excellent ideas of her own, besides, she knew how to put them to practical use. While the prescription business of the store was large and profitable, the soda fountain, a fine large one with every modern feature of equipment, was not making good, and there were seven other soda fountains in the town of some 2,000 inhabitants. Here was the wife’s opportunity. The drug store was a large and attractive place and she decided upon the following plan of action: She installed four private booths, covering the partitions with green burlap, with burlap curtains on the outside. Putting wire over the top of each booth, she covered them with paper flowers, which she made herself. The covering of one booth was of yellow roses, one of American beauty roses, one of pumpkin blossoms and one of lilies. In the center of each booth she placed an electric light, with a shade to match the flowers of the ceiling, also an electric bell. This novel and attractive arrangement proved very popular, and rapidly brought a large number of patrons who preferred to have sodas and ice cream served in the privacy of the tastefully decorated booths rather than to sit at tables in the open store. However, she was continually planning on some new feature to make the place talked about, and she turned her attention to the fountain itself. She built a large canopy over the fountain, and covered it with 300 crepe-paper oranges and 3,000 leaves, which produced a very striking and pleasing effect. To still further stimulate interest, she issued neatly designed and printed circulars, particularly when she had some novelty to give away, and thus kept it constantly before the public. That the idea was a good one, is shown by the fact that, whereas, the receipts from the soda fountain had formerly ranged from $6 to $10 a day, the carrying out of her new plan increased its revenue from $18 to $30 a day, and placed the store far in the lead of all the other drug stores in the town. PLAN No. 79. MOTION PICTURE THEATERS A husband and wife had lost their money and all they had left was $500 in cash, a moving-picture camera, and a good supply of courage. Selecting a location in a prosperous residence district they opened a moving-picture theater with a seating capacity of 400 people. The city every year had a local fiesta or carnival, lasting about two weeks, and the wife suggested the idea of taking daily motion pictures of the parades and showing them on the screen as an additional attraction. This greatly increased the attendance for a time, but when the fiesta was over there was a “slump” in the receipts. The wife then suggested that the husband present films of local interest. Whenever such a picture was taken, they would advertise: “Come and see yourself and your friends in the movies,” and it brought good returns. In fact, this plan proved so popular that they were obliged to enlarge their hall, all of which was due to the working out of an original idea--that everyone wants to see himself or herself on the screen. PLAN No. 80. FROM CLERK TO SUPERINTENDENT Every man who is a clerk would be very glad to be promoted to superintendent. But it isn’t every clerk who has a wife with the energy and the initiative to assist him. With the arrival of the second baby, the husband began to realize that he must have more money, but how to obtain it was the question. He could not ask for more salary, because he was already the best-paid shipping clerk in the establishment. Although without practical experience in the conduct of a large business, his wife intuitively realized that the difference between employer and employe was not because the employer did more work, but because he knew more about the business itself and how to direct others to do it to the best advantage of the employer. It was a hard thing to do, but after long and earnest reasoning with her husband she maintained that if he left more of the details of the work to his assistants, and devoted more of his time to planning improved methods, it would mean the recognition of his ability and his consequent advancement. He accepted his wife’s suggestion, acted upon it at once, and greatly profited by it, for he began to see the work through his employer’s eyes. Gradually the idea grew upon him, until he evolved a plan for the complete reorganization of his department in such a manner as to entail less cost and labor and yet bring better returns. In a dispute with the man next in authority over him, he won the approval of the general manager, because he was right. From that time on his advancement was rapid, and today he is superintendent of the entire business, due largely to his wife’s forethought. PLAN No. 81. MAKING OVER OLD HOUSES A lawyer in a western city had only a small practice but his wife possessed good business judgment. They had just cash enough to purchase a small house, with a good-sized lot, in a modest side street occupied mainly by the homes of working men. This lady possessed good taste in the matter of furnishings and decorations, and exercised her talent in this direction by turning this property into an attractive little home. By a most skillful arrangement of the furniture, and not having too much of it, she gave all the rooms the appearance of being much larger than they really were, while dotted Swiss curtains admitted sufficient light to impart a most cheerful atmosphere. Everything was made to contribute to the coziness of the place, and give it a homelike air that was very inviting. In a few months they were offered $350 more than the property cost them, and they accepted the offer. [Illustration: Plan No. 82. Industry has its rewards] They next bought an older house, that was badly in need of repairs, gave it two coats of white paint, added green shutters, and the wife improved the interior with home-made book-cases, window seats and kitchen conveniences of many kinds, and put blue and white lace paper on the pantry shelves. A retired farmer and his wife, who wanted to move to town, was greatly impressed with the pattern of that paper as well as with the large back yard, where quantities of garden products could be raised, and readily paid them $500 more than the cost of the place. They then bought a nine-room house, converted it into two apartments, that rented for $45 a month each, and a little later sold it at a profit of $1,150, making their total profits in two years $2,000. PLAN No. 82. CULTIVATING OTHER PEOPLE’S BACK YARDS Thousands of men and women who complain of “hard times” and bemoan the fact that they “can’t get anything to do,” could live comfortably by following the plan which an almost invalid husband and his wife so successfully carried out, at a time when everything looked very dark. They were in debt, through the illness of the husband, a mill worker, whom the doctors had told to get into some line of work that would give him plenty of outdoor exercise. In the residential section of the city, near by, were many back yards either sown in grass or covered with weeds, and utterly neglected and uncared for. The wife visited many of the homes where these conditions prevailed, and offered to give their back yards thorough cultivation during the season, for one-half of what might be grown on them. Some of the people refused the offer but enough agreed to the proposition to keep both the wife and her husband constantly employed. They raised a great deal more of all kinds of garden produce than both the families of the owners and the renters could use, and one-half of the excess they sold at good prices in the city, even selling some of it to the people who had refused them the use of their ground. The next year they had offers of more back yards than they could cultivate, but their three boys helped them with the work, and together they succeeded so well that they not only lived better than they ever had before, but were entirely out of debt and had a bank account besides. PLAN No. 83. FROM CLERK TO HYDRAULIC ENGINEER The husband in this case was a combination of stock-keeper and shipping clerk in a large machinery house, knew the details of the business thoroughly, and uncomplainingly shouldered the constantly increasing burdens and responsibilities that were placed upon him, with no intimation of a corresponding increase in salary. Finally he rebelled, and said to his wife that if he had a certain amount of capital he would go into business for himself. His wife remarked that he did not need any capital, if he would write to a number of manufacturers of the lines with which he was familiar, detailing his experience, and giving other important data, he would no doubt be appointed manufacturer’s agent in that part of the country; and being of good presence and pleasing personality, he could soon create a volume of sales that would pay him well. He acted upon the suggestion immediately, wrote several manufacturers, and was appointed resident agent by a number of them, on liberal commission basis. He resigned his position and went to work with not a dollar of capital invested. For a time he made his home his office, where his wife, having learned typewriting, proved a willing and valuable assistant. That was seven years ago. Today the husband has a big office, with plenty of help, in a down-town office building, and is recognized as one of the best hydraulic engineers in the state. PLAN No. 84. PROGRAMS FOR “MOVIE” THEATERS A man who had considerable experience in theatre-program advertising decided that if some money could be made from publishing one program a great deal more could be made with several programs. The following experience proved his reasoning was right: Visiting the managers of five leading motion-picture houses, he offered to furnish each with an attractive program twice a week, free of charge, provided he could have the bill three or four days in advance. He was to have all the money received from advertisements in the programs. They all accepted his proposition, and he called upon the printer, who usually set up his matter. He explained that there would be two editions of each program every week, those containing the bill for Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to be distributed at the various theatres on Wednesday, while that for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was to be distributed on Sunday, that all ads. were to stand for at least one month, while the bill was to be changed twice a week, and this, of course, enabled the printer to name a very low rate for the printing. He gave each theater twice as many programs for each day as there were seats in the house, so as to reach both the afternoon and evening crowds, and added 200 or 300 to that number for distribution on Sunday, the big day of the week. He selected the five theatres as near each other as possible, as most of the advertisers were in that vicinity. He usually ran about sixteen pages of ads., though during the holidays he would have as much as twenty-four pages most of the time; and as he printed about 20,000 programs a week, he had no difficulty in securing good prices for the ads. The advertisers soon found it was well worth all it cost, and the originator of the plan realized many thousands of dollars from it. PLAN No. 85. MESSENGER SERVICE It was a woman who originated the plan of establishing a messenger service to meet the needs of a large number of people who are not regular patrons of the larger messenger agencies and who often have special messages or articles requiring prompt and trustworthy delivery. At a total cost of less than $30, she fitted up her kitchen as an office and as headquarters for the boys whom she engaged for this service, circulated a few hundreds cards, with her address and telephone number, among the class of business people she wished to reach, had blanks printed for the names and addresses of those to whom messages were sent, with space for their acknowledgement of the receipt of whatever was delivered, and inserted a few ads. in the local paper, announcing the beginning of her new enterprise. She adopted a schedule of prices a little lower than those charged by the larger companies, and engaged the services of two good reliable boys of her acquaintance to make deliveries. Patrons soon found the service satisfactory and her business grew with amazing rapidity. Within a year she was enjoying an income far in excess of what she anticipated. She is now more than pleased with the success of her novel plan for making a comfortable living. PLAN No. 86. WATCH FOBS FOR 5 CENTS EACH AT COLLEGE Selling watch fobs for 5 cents each, and yet realizing a profit of $1.50 from the sale yourself, looks like one of those things that “can’t be done” and yet it is easily accomplished. This plan helped pay part of his college expenses. He procures a quantity of ribbon representing the colors of the local football or baseball team and bearing a small nickel or silver-plated ornament, such as a horseshoe or football, and the one who gets the fob was entitled to have his name or any design engraved upon it free of charge. The plan is usually worked in a cigar store, or pool hall as follows: Two fobs are attached to a card with the label “Win a Watch Fob for 5 cents,” and the game is played with dice in a set of five. Three throws for 5 cents is the charge, and the spots are counted and recorded with each throw. The highest possible throw in three shakes is 90, the lowest