In this chapter we tell you what to do with the “home acre,” with examples of what others have done with it.
149. Money in Pears. – Do you know that one acre of the best yielding pear trees will bring more profit than a five-hundred acre farm without a twentieth of the care or capital?
150. Greenbacks in Greenings. – It is a fact that forty apple trees of the R. H. Greening variety on a single acre have yielded a crop worth $400.
151. Plums of Gold. – A widow has in her garden twelve plum trees from which she regularly receives $60 a year.
152. The Raspberry Acre. – “There are repeated instances of $400 and even $600 being made clear from a single acre of raspberries.” See Morris’ “Ten Acres Enough.”
153. Profits in Big Peaches. – When ordinary peaches were selling at 25 cents a bushel, a grower received $2 a bushel. This is how he did it. When the fruit was as large as a hickory nut, he employed a large force of laborers and picked off more than one-half the fruit. The rest ripened early, grew large, and were of excellent quality. His net profit that year from eleven acres was between $3,000 and $4,000.
154. Easy Tomatoes. – An easy crop, requiring little care. Says a grower in New Jersey: “My single acre of tomatoes netted a clear profit of $120. I am aware that others have realized more than double this sum, but they were experienced hands, while I was new to the business.” Four hundred dollars per acre has frequently been realized from this crop. One person had four acres from which he received from $1,500 to $2,000 annually.
155. Assorted Strawberries. – Here is the experience of a novice: “I ran a ditch through my wet and almost worthless meadow land, and set it out with strawberry plants. The second year I had an enormous crop. The larger berries were separated from the smaller, and the show thus made by the assorted fruit was magnificent. For 600 quarts I received $300, it being a little early for strawberries in the New York market.” It pays to grow early and large fruit.
156. Livings in Lettuce. – Fifteen thousand heads can be set upon an acre. These at the average price of $1.50 per hundred means $225 per acre. Five acres of this crop should give a fair-sized family a good living. It is an auxiliary crop and may be sowed between heads of cabbage.
157. Sovereigns in Spinach. – There are few more important crops in market. It requires little labor, can be cultivated evenings and mornings by a busy man, and pays about $75 an acre.
158. Thousand-Dollar Celery. – Celery may be grown as a second crop after beets, onions, or peas are cleared up. A little reckoning in the number of heads per acre shows that if the grower could get the consumer’s price of eight or ten cents a head, it would yield a clear profit of $1,000.
159. Fortunes in Water-cress. – “I have no doubt,” says a large grower, “that in situations where irrigation could be used at pleasure, or regular plantations made as for cranberries, judging from the enormous price water-cress sells at, picked as it is in the present haphazard way, an acre would sell for $4,000 or $5,000.”
160. The Dollar Blackberry. – When the Lawton first came out, so great was the praise of it and the rush to obtain it that many roots were sent through the mail at $1 apiece, and the lucky discoverer netted a small fortune. But any grower has the same chances to discover a new variety, or to improve on his present stock.
161. Nickels in Pickles. – Do you know that the enormous number of 150,000 cucumbers may be easily grown on an acre of land, and that at the low price of $1.50 per thousand this means $225 per acre? The crop also is very easily raised.
162. The Beet Lot. – You can grow 80,000 roots per acre even when sown a foot apart, yet at $1 per hundred, deducting one-half for expenses, there still results a net value of $400.
163. The Roasting Ear. – You can plant an acre of sweet corn, realize $100 for it, clear it off in August, sow the cleared ground with turnip seed, and from the second crop reap another $100.
164. Paying Peas. – They are the early kind, marketed before the price falls. If grown under glass so as to be crowded on the market in early June, they will bring $4 a bushel, and at that rate an acre will mean $400. If delayed a month, they will not bring a quarter of that sum.
165. Grated Horseradish. – The root is very easily raised, requires little cultivation, but is quite profitable. Grate finely and put in attractive white bottles with red labels. Give it some fancy name, as “Red Orchard,” or “Spring Valley.” “Little Neck” clams got their reputation largely in this way. Sell for ten cents a bottle.
Chapter VII
Money for women
One Hundred Ways a Woman Can Earn a Living – A New Way to Remember Your Friends – The Woman with a Pet Dog – Solving the Servant-girl Question – Shopping for Pleasure and Profit – Profits of a Lady Barber – The Business of “Samples” – The Rise of the Trained Nurse – Dollars in Scents – How to Go to Paris Without Cost – Something that will Sell to Millions of Shoppers – How Clara Louise Kellog Got a Start – A Woman Who Sold her Jewels for Newspapers – Women in the Civil Service.
The field of woman’s work has been vastly augmented during the last half-century. From school teaching and dressmaking, which were about the only occupations open to our grandmothers, the number of ways a woman can make a living have increased to over two hundred. To be exact, there are two hundred and twenty-one occupations open to women, out of a total of two hundred and fifty. It is the design of the author to give only those methods which are unique, unusual, and presumably unknown to most lady readers. In a few cases these money-making methods must be considered as only tributary to a larger source of revenue, as when a salaried position or business enterprise is not sufficient for a support, or when a woman wishes to help the family “eke out a living,” but in most cases it is expected that the suggestions if followed will be an adequate source of income. Several of these ways may often be united where one is insufficient. There is no need for any woman to marry for the sake of a home. The examples given will enable any lady of the least tact, skill, or enterprise, to secure an independent living.
166. The School Store. – If you live near a public school, a small store containing candies, school supplies and knickknacks for the children will be found to bring much profit. The store need not be large or conspicuous. A room in a private house will do. Children, like bees, are all fond of sweets. The store need be open only for an hour in the morning, or noon, and at the close of school, so that other work may be carried on at the same time. A dressmaker, with hours arranged so as not to conflict, could combine very well these two ways of earning a living.
167. The Hand Album. – Have an album made in usual style, except that the places for pictures are omitted. Smear each page with soft wax to the depth of one-sixth of an inch. When a friend calls, slightly heat a page and request him to lay his hands, palms down, upon it. In that way you can preserve the digits of your friends, and you will be surprised to find there is as much difference in hands as in faces. When your album is full, if you choose you can consult a patent lawyer, and arrange to protect your invention. A novelty of this kind would doubtless be immensely popular, and enable the author to reap a financial harvest.
168. The Novelty Bakery. – A woman who knows how to make tempting creations in flour can make a good living. Begin by taking your goods to the Woman’s Exchange, of which almost every large city has at least one. If your baking is novel, from the Exchange will come demands from private customers, and even orders from hotels. A New England woman, beginning in a small way, in a few months had an income of $33 per week.
169. The Front Yard Snap. – With a photographer’s
