Take a suitable amount of the shelled peanuts and boil in oil until well done, after which remove them from the oil and spread thinly over a tin-covered table; then sprinkle the desired quantity of fine salt over them immediately. Let them dry and put up in neat packages.
Peanut oil, beef suet, or unsalted butter may be used. A substance known as “Konut,” which may be had of the leading grocers, is in many respects more satisfactory than any of the oils mentioned.
Use an iron kettle, and place the nuts in a basket made of iron wire netting, so they may be easily lifted from the oil when cooked. Never, under any circumstances, use brass, copper, or zinc for either the kettle or the basket. The nuts should be stirred frequently, while cooking, with a wooden paddle.
The best shelled peanuts cost 4 to 5 cents a pound in small quantities, and this process of salting costs about one cent a pound, so that 5 or 6 cents a pound is the total cost. They easily bring 10 to 12 cents a pound or more so that the young man made at least 100 per cent profit. As peanut money is “turned over” very quickly, and doubled each time, he soon realized he had a very profitable undertaking—a good money-maker.
PLAN No. 368. SELLING POWDER WITH A PREMIUM
To offer a premium as a means of inducing people to buy even an inferior article sometimes succeeds, but here is the case of a Denver man who not only offered an article of superior merit, but also gave a useful premium with each sale, and it won him a patronage that was permanent and profitable.
The article he had for sale was a lustre powder for cleaning any kind of metal, paint or woodwork, and, although it consisted only of pure common whiting, with a little oil of lavender to perfume it, it produced excellent results as a cleaner, when used with a piece of clean flannel dipped in warm water, squeezed nearly dry, and then dipped into the powder, and briskly rubbed.
To induce sales, he put on a card three enameled knobs of various sizes, for coffee pots, teapots, teakettles, pot covers, stewpans, drawer or door pulls, which he bought for 60 cents per gross, and offered the three for a premium with each 10-cent package of the powder sold.
The sales under this system were excellent, and when he figured that the powder, printing, boxes, knobs, and all complete, cost him less than 21⁄2 cents, and he sold them for 10 cents thus getting back $4 for $1, he was well satisfied, as he knew it would not only produce him a livelihood but a saving as well.