He put this up in pint tin cans with screw tops, and retailed it at $1.00 per can.
He also took orders for dressing carriages and automobiles, one can being enough to use on the top, side curtains and rain apron. This could all be done in half an hour, and he charged $2 to $3 for each job. Livery stables and auto garages bought a dozen or more cans at a time, as it is the best dressing on the market. It can also be used for rubber and cloth tops, and will last for years. Water and mud do not affect its luster.
PLAN No. 353. OPENED A NEWS DEPOT
On a capital of $25, a 19-year-old boy in a western town of 1,000 people opened a news depot in a small way, yet made it pay him a profit of $900 the first year, and it now pays several times that amount. An eastern news bureau supplies him, through its agency in the nearest city, with all the paper-bound books, magazines, weekly and monthly periodicals for which there is a demand, and takes back the copies unsold. He also added a small line of cigars and tobacco, secured the agency for a steam laundry in the city and has built up a very thriving little business of his own.
PLAN No. 354. ATTORNEY FOR INTERSTATE COMMERCE. SEE [PLAN No. 217]
PLAN No. 355. HE SOLD BUTTERMILK
A young farmer lad who wanted to live in the city, found a way in which that could be done, without any danger of his going hungry, or of being obliged to look for a job.
Knowing the value of buttermilk as a food and a drink, he decided to go into the business of selling it. There was a large creamery near the city in which he had chosen to cast his fortune and he visited the manager to learn the lowest price at which he could be supplied with fresh buttermilk every day in quantities of not less than 100 gallons, and was surprised at the low price quoted. He then visited a large number of restaurants, hotels, saloons, etc., and offered to deliver to them the quantity required by each every day, for 12 cents per gallon, which was three times what it cost him.
Having a few hundred dollars, he purchased a rig especially adapted to this purpose, and began his deliveries at once. He had attractive showcards printed, “Fresh Buttermilk Sold Here,” and put up one of these in a conspicuous place wherever he was making deliveries. He also had the hotel keepers mention buttermilk on their menus, which they were glad to do, as it cost only about half the price of sweet milk.
He had a publicity man prepare for him a number of articles dealing with the healthfulness of buttermilk, and thus created an increased demand for it by publishing one of these in the city papers once a week.