Plant endive on a city lot. This article can be treated in brine and cannot be told from fresh dandelion greens. Get regular customers for the entire winter. Supply stores, restaurants, etc.
PLAN No. 288. EARLY CUCUMBERS
Very early cucumbers bring $1.00 per dozen. Start your cucumber plants early in strawberry boxes in the house. When they have four leaves on them, transplant, early in April, and you will have your cucumbers in the market before your neighbors have planted theirs. You could sell cucumber plants to your neighbors and to the stores also.
PLAN No. 289. RAISING SWEET PEAS
Raise sweet peas. One ounce of seed will produce 10,000 blossoms, and florists pay around $3.00 per 1,000 for them. On an acre thirty ounces could be planted, or even on a city lot three ounces of seed can be raised and make you money.
PLAN No. 290. A NOTION STORE AT HOME
A poor woman living in a Chicago suburb made a good living by laying in a small but well selected stock of notions at her home, which was a long distance from a store of any kind. She got these at wholesale prices, and sold them at regular retail rates, so she made sufficient profit to support herself in comfort, as the ladies in the neighborhood bought practically all their little notions from her.
PLAN No. 291. MAKING COTTAGE CHEESE
Few foods are more palatable, more healthful or more economical than cottage cheese, when properly made.
A California farmer’s wife makes hers from milk that is not too old, and often sours sweet milk by adding a little buttermilk to it. She cooks it in 5-gallon “shotgun” cans. As soon as the milk sets into a firm clabber she puts the cans into a 30-gallon tank of boiling water, connected with the kitchen stove by pipes and the usual waterback in the firebox, stirring the milk a little, and cutting the curd with a long-bladed knife. When the curd readily separates from the whey, lift the can out and let it stand from ten to twenty minutes. The contents of the can are then poured into a large bag made of cheese-cloth, which is hung up to drain. The whey is fed to the pigs as it contains milk-sugar which is a fattening ration. In a few hours the cheese will be drained enough. It is then thoroughly mashed and mixed in a proper vessel, salted, and it is ready for the trip to town. It should be sold at once as it does not keep long.