PLAN No. 517. A QUICK FIRE KINDLER
A householder who had had much experience in building fires in the morning, and realized the difficulties and discomforts so often encountered in that necessary duty, experimented until he had perfected a kindling compound that could be relied upon.
He melted one quart of tar and three pounds of rosin together, brought it to a cooling temperature, and mixed it with as much coarse sawdust as could be worked in, with a little charcoal added. This he spread upon a board, and when cold he broke it up into lumps about the size of walnuts. These ignited easily and burned with a strong blaze long enough to light any fire.
Being anxious to confer this advantage upon other households, he made up a large quantity and sold it to the fuel dealers in his city, at such a rapid rate and such a big profit that he commenced to make it on an extensive scale, and thereafter he looked upon the winter as his harvest time.
PLAN No. 518. COMMUNITY ORGANIZER FOR U. S. SEE [PLAN No. 217]
PLAN No. 519. COPYING PATTERNS ON CLOTH
An invalid woman, who liked working pretty designs on cloth goods, yet found difficulty in obtaining patterns to her liking, discovered a way of copying her own drawings on cloth, so that they could be worked as though they were stamped.
She mixed a quantity of finely powdered sealing wax with alcohol, until it was thoroughly dissolved. Then she dipped a clean pen in this liquid, and traced the desired pattern on tracing paper, and let it dry. She put this paper, marked side down, on the cloth on which she wished to copy the pattern, and pressed with a hot iron. The scaling wax in the liquid melted from the heat and stuck to the cloth, and formed a duplicate of the design she had drawn.
She was so well pleased with the results of the experience that she decided to make a profit out of the information, so she advertised in the classified columns of the daily papers that on receipt of 25 cents she would instruct anyone how to do this work. Remittances came in, and the printed instructions were duly mailed, to the satisfaction of hundreds of women who sent for them.