1914. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1475 
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Business 
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Early Cucumbers Bring Pin-Money. 
ARLY last Spring, when the days be¬ 
gan to gi’ow warm, I filled four half¬ 
barrels that were lying unused on the 
south side of the granary, with rich black 
soil, mixing in plenty of well-rotted ma¬ 
nure and tilting them so they would get 
more of the sun’s rays. In each I planted 
a dozen early cucumber seeds and spread 
a thin layer of sand over the top. Every 
day I watered them, and at night, while 
it was chilly I covered them with an old 
piece of carpet. The first week of May 
was cold and snowy, and I had to throw’ 
several forkfuls of straw on top of the 
carpet to protect them during the cold 
spell. They grew and thrived and by the 
middle of June I had large, luscious homo 
grown cucumbers, which I had no trouble 
in disposing of at 10 cents each, and my 
only trouble was that my supply was not 
as great as the demand. My little experi¬ 
ment netted me $9.50, and I felt amply 
repaid for the small amount of extra 
work they had made me. 
North Dakota. MRS. u. R. merry. 
Home Canning. 
ROM the ‘little advertisement you in¬ 
serted in “Subscribers’ Exchange” we 
have sold to date $25.33 worth of 
canned goods, besides getting a number 
of good customers who will no doubt stay 
with us for years. This was one of the 
free advertisements you inserted for farm 
women. MRS. w. A. smith. 
Our people will remember about this. 
We inserted the advertisement as an ex¬ 
periment, just to see if our people are 
buyers. The others all brought fair re¬ 
turns. We are surprised at times that 
farmers or their wives do not make a 
greater use of this department. Every 
issue of The R. N.-Y. is read by at 
least 300,000 people—every one of them 
wanting something, and we doubt if there 
is any article of common use which could 
not find a purchaser if fairly presented to 
our readers. You must not expect the 
impossible through an advertisement and 
it may take time to attract attention and 
inspire confidence, but this “Subscribers’ 
Exchange” really offers a great oppor¬ 
tunity to many farmers and their wives 
to build up a good trade. 
A Co-operative Kitchen. 
OT long ago we gave an account of 
the cooperative store which was or¬ 
ganized at Montclair, X. J. This store 
seems to have given very good satisfac¬ 
tion, and now a new cooperative venture 
has been started in the same town. 
About one hundred men and women of 
Montclair have opened a cooperative 
kitchen. Their object is to have a place 
where a regular dinner can be cooked, 
and either served to the club members 
if they prefer, or sent out in neat pack¬ 
ages to their homes. Recently a sample 
dinner was served to the shareholders 
of this kitchen, with the following bill- 
of-fare. 
Julienne Soup 
Maryland Chicken 
Beans Sweet Potatoes Baked Potatoes 
Mushroom Patties 
Fruit Salad Cheese Balls 
Meringue Coffee 
This dinner was a sample of what 
they call a 50-eeut meal. It will be a 
regular feature of the kitchen, and will 
be sent out to any of the shareholders 
at their homes. 
Another plan of the kitchen is to serve 
these dinners in the homes of the share¬ 
holders, if they desire it. In such a case 
the kitchen will send competent people 
right into the private home to prepare 
and cook the food and serve it, the share¬ 
holders, of course, paying a fair price 
for all this. 
Auother feature which this kitchen in¬ 
tends to work out is a plan for training 
domestic servants. They will take wom¬ 
en and girls and train them in cooking 
and serving a meal, and when they are 
efficient let them go out to do housework 
by the day, the week, or the month, as 
desired. This is a practical plan for 
solving the domestic help problem, which 
is a great trial and nuisance in all subur¬ 
ban towns. There is a chance for similar 
enterprises in almost any town of fail- 
size. or even in country communities. 
Some businesslike women, or a group of 
women, can organize a kitchen of this 
sort, and as soon as they establish a 
fair reputation for producing good food, 
and handle it in a businesslike manner, 
they will have no trouble in obtaining 
trade. The whole tendency of the times 
is along the line of this cooperative work, 
and there is no reason why farm women 
should not have their share of it. 
It is said that on Nov. 28 a party of 
eight persons took one of these sample 
dinners from Montclair, N. J. to Phila¬ 
delphia in packages. The dinner came 
out of the containers warm and tasty 
and was a great success. 
Now It Is the Middle-Woman. 
IIE picture herewith shows a scene 
quite familiar to many farmers near 
the line between Rhode Island and 
Massachusetts. The woman who is driv¬ 
ing this outfit has developed a fine trade 
in eggs and poultry, and light farm pro¬ 
duce. She went into the country upon a 
farm when her husband’s health gave out, 
and probably had the wisdom to see that 
as a back-to-the-lander she did not have 
the strength or the weight to pound a 
living out of the soil. There are differ¬ 
ent ways, however, of making a living, 
and this small and refined woman saw 
an opportunity to benefit both farmers 
and consumers by doing a produce busi¬ 
ness. We might, without disrespect, al¬ 
lude to her as a middlewoman, much 
desired and exceedingly useful in the 
community. She drives about through 
the country picking up poultry products 
and light high-grade material, and then 
takes it to Providence and other large 
cities, where she sells it out to good ad¬ 
vantage. The farmers are all pleased to 
deal with her; she seems to be popular 
all along the way. Before she left town 
she was a stenographer, and her pound¬ 
ing the keys of her machine has evident¬ 
ly taught her how to touch the keys of 
human nature, so as to produce a good 
business document. This woman is do¬ 
ing well at her business, and she has cer¬ 
tainly set us all an example of how to 
develop a good trade in a new way, and 
in a new section. There is more money 
to be made in the future by learning how 
to reach the consumer direct, than there 
ever will be in producing larger crops. 
A Market for Shirt Waists. 
O you know any place where I could 
get sewing to do at home, for in¬ 
stance, shirtwaists or something like 
that? c. E. 
Pennsylvania. 
This question of earning money at 
home is one that is of vital importance 
to farm women and I hesitate to under¬ 
take to answer it without knowing the 
capabilities of the questioner and the 
condition which prompts the reason thus 
to earn money. Your own suggestion is 
a good one. Shirt waists in these times 
are used by every woman. In fact they 
are using more today than ever before, 
and a large number of them would be 
glad to find some reliable person who 
would make a waist that would fit and 
hold together after it was made. Your 
difficulty would be in finding a market. 
Are the conditions such that you feel 
as though you could go among your 
friends and acquaintances and ask for 
this type of work? If they are it would 
seem to me that you could begin there 
with profit to yourself and satisfaction 
to them. Gradually your customers 
would increase by one telling the other 
and you would probably get all that you 
could do. This method of securing work 
has two advantages. First, you know 
your people and you can be reasonably 
sure that the garments you make will 
fit. Second, a considerable portion of 
what you do could be delivered without 
incurring the small expense of the par¬ 
cel post. I understand that the commun¬ 
ity in which you live is what we term a 
farming town. If you have friends liv¬ 
ing too far away to see personally you 
could solicit the work by letter. In do¬ 
ing that you would need to have them 
send you the following measurements: 
The neck, length of sleeve, length of cuff, 
around wrist, bust, waist and length of 
waist; also the style of waist desired. I 
am quite sure as I said at the outset 
that you will find enough women who 
want shirt waists to furnish all the work 
you could do. It will require a little 
effort to secure customers, but once you 
have established a trade, if you charge 
only a reasonable price, they will come 
back again and again, as they go to a 
store to buy, and you are likely to find 
that will bring their friends with them. 
To build up a trade of this kind is pos¬ 
sible, but it will require a little effort on 
your part to let the people who want 
your work know that you can and will 
do it. ESTHER A. COSSE. 
A City Ice Box. 
I N a recent issue we had a brief ac¬ 
count of the public refrigerator in 
the city of Cleveland. Ohio. There has 
been some further correspondence about 
this, and so we print the following from 
the market master of Cleveland. Wom¬ 
en in Cleveland might club together, buy 
good-sized lots of supplies direct from 
farmers, and store in this refrigerator 
until wanted. 
There are a great number of people in 
Cleveland who have stored a crate of 
eggs or a barrel of apples, and we allow 
these patrons to take out one-half of any 
package at the same rate charged ordin¬ 
arily, but we do not allow them to take 
out a smaller quantity than this. You 
can see that it would be impossible to 
allow people to take out one dozen eggs, 
or a peck of apples out of a barrel, as it 
would be too costly to operate under this 
plan. In most cases, two or three fami¬ 
lies take advantage of our plan and in 
this way they can consume one-half of 
a package to advantage. The rate for 
eggs is 40 cents per crate per season, 
meaning from April to February 1st. or 
10 cents per month. Apples are 40 cents 
per barrel for the season, from Oct. 1st 
to May 1st. or 10 cents per month. We 
have approximately 300 of these patrons 
at the present time. ciias. kamp. 
Market Master. 
Trade by Parcel Post. 
EFERRING to article on page 1390, 
under the caption, “Be fair in parcel 
post prices,” I inclose a leaflet pub¬ 
lished gratis by the postmaster at Wash¬ 
ington. D. C. This gives the addresses 
of the farmers and the prices which they 
ask for their wares for the next two 
weeks, otherwise the circular is self-ex¬ 
planatory and needs little comment from 
me except to say there is range enough 
in prices with fresh eggs quoted at from 
25 to 60 cents per dozen. I am much 
afraid some of those 25-cent eggs are sold 
at less than cost. I know eggs produced 
on our farms just now cost at least $1 
per dozen to produce, and I think we 
produce them as cheaply as anyone cau 
at this time of the year who has to buy 
grain. I should be very glad to see this 
Washington experiment duplicated at 
New York, as I believe it would quickly 
solve the question of bringing the farm¬ 
er and consumer together with mutual 
advantages. f. m. p. 
New Jersey. 
R. N-Y.—This list will be furnished by 
the postmaster at Washington, D. C. It 
contains the names and addresses of 147 
people who offer produce for sale by 
parcel post. This produce includes eggs, 
poultry, butter, fruit, nuts, vegetables, 
hams and sausage, flour and eornmeal, 
pine pillows, pickles, beans, cider, roots 
and herbs, flowers, oysters and fish. etc. 
Most of these people are doing a fair 
trade, the increase depending on the care 
they take to please customers by pack¬ 
ing and grading. Send for this list and 
study it. 
Cat Breeders. 
RE there dealers and breeders in An¬ 
gora cats and where could I find 
such. Is there any sale for these 
cats? I have been told they sell at $15 
each when very young. m. e. s. 
There are a good many cat breeders— 
some of them say they do fairly well 
when the breeding business is a side 
issue. Very few of them we think, de¬ 
pend on their cats for a living. There 
is a fair demand for these cats as there 
is for show or toy dogs. The best way 
to learn about this business would be to 
attend the cat and dog shows frequently 
held in the large cities, and read the 
papers which represent this industry. No 
doubt there are women among our read¬ 
ers who handle both cats and dogs. 
Home Markets. 
NOTE the remarks of the Hope Farm 
man on selling in the home market. 
We have depended on our local market 
for years. Our city has a population 
of 9.000. among which are many retired 
farmers. We advertise in the local pa¬ 
pers and sell in direct competition with 
the Michigan and New York apples 
which are shipped in by the carload. 
These sell here at 50 to 75 cents per 
bushel retail. After allowing for the 
profit of the retailer, the wholesaler and 
the jobber, and paying freight how much 
profit did the grower in Michigan or New 
York get for his labor and investment? 
Let fruit growers in each State get to¬ 
gether and organize associations for self 
protection against the organized buyers 
who refuse to pay decent prices. We 
also use a small advertisement which we 
enclose in letters as we have occasion 
to write on business matters. These 
lead to sales outside our State and we 
Buy “Shady Nook” Apples. 
DIRECT FROM ORCHARD TO CELLAR 
Orchard Sprayed Fit© Tune©. Foil Measnre. Fine Quality 
lOOO Bushels of Baldwins 
No. 1. 2S{‘ in. to 3 in. in diameter.$1.25 
No. 2. 1& in. to in. in diameter.$1.00 
No. 3. Off in shape and color.75c 
SALOME at the same prices. 
Send CASH with your order. Discount on Ur^c orders or to those 
who come to the orchard. 
JOHN L. SHAWVER & SON, Bellefonlaiue, O. 
ReteraMR. Puna or Bradttreet 
ship to Indianapolis, Chicago, Philadel¬ 
phia and other centers. Yesterday we 
shipped a lot to Southern Alabama. 
JOHN L. SHAWVER. 
R. N.-Y.—We print Mr. Shawver’s 
card merely to show others how to do it. 
There can be no question whatever about 
the possibilities of the home market and 
the value of advertising. We must all 
learn how to do it. 
I T is stated that over 50 per cent, of 
the students at the Kansas Agricultu¬ 
ral College are self-supporting—wholly 
or in large part. These students do all 
sorts of work to help themselves along. 
One of the most novel means of self- 
support has been adopted by a group of 
men. each of whom bought a cow. A 
Manhattan man interested in dairying is 
giving the students board and room in re¬ 
turn for the milk from the animals. 
This going through college tied to a 
cow’s tail is an honorable way of getting 
through. We know of a boy who went 
through on the income from one sow. 
This sow’s two litters a year gave money 
enough with what the boy earned to pay 
his bills. These bills, however, were light 
weights compared with what young peo¬ 
ple now consider necessary. We would 
like to know how many of these students 
are going through college partly on money 
which is taken from the needs and desires 
of sister and mother 1 
