A Seattle woman, who had merely a little room between two buildings on a prominent street, not only knew exactly how to perform this delicate task, but also had procured one of the very best makes of machines for that purpose.
The regular charge for sharpening single-edge blades is usually 25 cents, and 35 cents for those with double edges, but she made arrangements with a number of cigar stores in different parts of the city to keep one of her showcards in the window, and take orders as they came in, on a commission of 7 cents per dozen on all blades so received. Through small ads. in the classified columns of the daily papers, asking people to mail their blades to her, she found, inside of three months, that she must remove to larger quarters and employ an assistant, in addition to the boy who made daily collections of dull blades, and deliveries of sharpened ones, at the various cigar stores.
This business, small as it may seem, brought in a net profit of $50 to $60 a week. It is often the case that the good profit is in the small articles.
PLAN No. 382. FUMIGATING HEN-HOUSE STRIPS
A chicken fancier in a small western town, who had used fumigating nest eggs to good purpose, was aware that the roost was fully as favorable to the propagation of chicken-lice as is the nest, and concluded that a fumigating strip along the top of each roost would destroy or rout the vermin from there also.
The composition of which these fumigating strips are made is much more lasting and effective than either liquid or powder preparations, and therefore less expensive. The formula is as follows:
Naphthalin or tar camphor, 1 pound; standard oil of tar, 1⁄2 pint; fine pine sawdust, 3 pounds; plaster of paris, 14 pounds. Mix the first three well together, then put in the plaster. Take about 2 pounds of the mixture at a time, add enough water to make it a stiff paste, and, working rapidly before it sets, roll or mold it into egg-size balls or pour into a mold several feet long to make the strips. Drive nails into the bottom of the mold about one foot apart, so as to leave nail holes in the strip and prevent it from breaking when nailed on. When well hardened nail the strips to the tops of the roosts and they can also be used in lining the nest boxes, the sides of the chicken house, etc.
Through a little advertising in country weeklies and farm and poultry journals he received many orders for both fumigating eggs and strips, the eggs selling for 10 cents each singly, or $1 per dozen, and the strips at 10 cents per foot, or ten feet for 80 cents. They did the work of ridding the hen-houses of vermin. He found it paid him to make it a regular business during the spring months, for it was nearly all profit, and he averaged $100 a month net from this very simple but very effective plan.
PLAN No. 383. SELLING LIMES BY MAIL
Fully as delicious and healthful as lemons, if not more so, limes are not nearly so well known or in such general use as they should be. Dispensers of fancy drinks, however, know their value, and will pay good prices for them.