Being very proficient in embroidery work, she organized a class of fifty of her fellow-students, to whom she gave a course of twenty embroidery lessons, at $5.00 each for the course, while several of the girls who wished instruction in difficult stitches were each charged $1.00 a lesson. She also took subscriptions for a periodical devoted largely to embroidery and needle work, and received a commission of 25 cents on each subscription she secured.
The faculty gave her shopping privileges two afternoons each week, and she improved these occasions by executing commissions at the various stores for the other girl students. She had excellent taste in the matter of selections, and her purchases were not only highly pleasing to those for whom they were made, but she received a discount from each of the merchants thus patronized, and this netted her a neat little sum, her commissions alone in nine months amounting to $260.
She also added $90 to her income through the sale of copies of articles contributed to the college journal, and her total earnings for the year were $662.50.
The income she derived from these various activities not only relieved her parents of all expense for her education, but gave her a valuable insight into practical business principles and methods, while developing a spirit of confidence in her own abilities, as well as a feeling of independence.
PLAN No. 68. $4,800 FOR FIVE CALVES
The old saying that “pigs is pigs,” might with equal propriety be applied to calves, particularly if they are of Holstein-Friesian stock, if one is to judge from the experience of a breeder of blooded stock in New York state.
From one cow, nine years old, this man has sold five calves for $4,800, has another for which he has refused $500, and still another of her progeny is owned by a man who wouldn’t sell it at any price.
This man started as a poor boy, who was obliged to work as a hired hand on a farm, at $10 per month. But the farmer employer did not always have the $10 when the month was up, and really couldn’t afford to keep a hired man, or a boy, though he needed one.
However, he did own a pure-bred Holstein calf and the farmer offered this calf to the boy for two months’ work on the farm. The boy had a keen eye for good points of an animal, and accepted the offer, keeping the calf in a small pasture on his employer’s farm until fall when he took it with him to his own humble home and gave it the best of care.
Well, that calf was the mother of the nine-year-old cow that was the mother, of the five calves which the “boy” has sold for $4,800, and still has a calf worth more than $500.