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.