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Discovered! 505
Odd Enterprises

Hidden Dollars

How to Make
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Small Business
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You Can Own
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I am firmly convinced that winning contests calls for a technique all its own, and the only way to acquire this technique is to invest in a good correspondence contest course. A contest course gives you a big "edge" over other entrants in the short-statement (twenty-five words or less), last-line, name, slogan, and other contests. Perhaps the most valuable help a contest school brings the students is the generous number of winning entries in recent contests or in contests similar to those currently running. As winning entries come in to the school, day after day and week after week, the head of the contest school is in the enviable position of being able to formulate many winning secrets from them. If a contest runs six weeks, as many do, students of one contest school know by the third week many of the first week's winners and from then on will slant their own entries along that line.

Contest bulletins of the reputable schools list all the more important national contests that the students might otherwise miss. Another valuable way in which the students are helped is by giving them the winning style and slant for current contests. This is possible because of the school's large file of winning entries that have been judged by the same judging organizations judging current national contests. Each judging agency has its likes and dislikes, which have been accurately diagnosed and catalogued by contest schools. This "knowing the judges" is of extreme importance if you want to win contests; one Albany, New York, man who had tried contesting had won only fifteen dollars until he enrolled in a contest school, and for the duration of the course his winnings totaled $2,140.

There are several good contest schools in the country. One of the best is The Shepherd School of Contest Technique, at 1015 Chestnut St., Philadelphia 7, Penna. Run by Wilmer S. Shepherd, Jr., an all American "contestar," the semiweekly bulletins are meaty and full of winning entries to guide you. One Shepherd student has won over three hundred prizes, topped by a $20,000 First Prize in the All-American Contest. Another living in New Haven won the first cars awarded in two limerick contests.

"Why not," she thought one day, "put out our own cologne—a scent that would suggest the tang of bayberries and sweet fern, of wind from the sea through the pine woods?" This simple idea was the beginning of Bayberry Mist. A leading perfumer developed the formula, and then came the necessity for a package—a package that would tell a story. This package today is expressed in a Bayberry Mist promotional folder as "an odd bottle, etched as if by sand and of the textures of bottles rolled by the surf upon the shore." The etching gives the bottle an over-all frosty appearance, through which the cool green color of the cologne shows like the green of the sea on a sunny day. By use of the silk-screen process for applying the stopping-out varnish, the name Bayberry Mist and a decorative treatment of sea gulls are left transparent on the bottle in script lettering. Stock bottles are used but the etching provides distinction; a metal-lined, turned-wood closure gives the effect of pine wood.

Four thousand bottles were sold the first year through gift and department stores; talcum powder, bath salts, and an after-shave lotion were added, since men too liked the clean smell of bayberries. Label designs drawn by Mr. Blakeman carried out the Cape Cod idea with maps of the peninsula, ships, and sea gulls carefully arranged with sprigs of bayberry and printed on a wood-grain paper in one color, green, to suggest the idea of early New England paneling. Always in mind was the aim to use packaging supplies that were not too expensive, yet would provide the distinctive appearance required for a product that depended to a large extent for its acceptance on its locality appeal.

Bayberry Mist will never be big business. The Blakemans are happier doing many things, and instead of concentrating on just the one "line" they are using their creative abilities; you get into big business only when you thoroughly cover one idea. But the Blakemans have many activities, and the Bayberry Mist Toiletries is just one, for as Marion Blakeman says:

"I make jams and jellies. I made some three hundred pounds of fruit cake for our little mail-order catalogue which features the toiletries and a few unusual gifts. I am continually designing something that keeps the sewing machine hot and smoking in our factory-barn where we started a retail shop to handle other things made on the Cape. We have gradually done a lot to the old building. We insulated it, sheathed it, and put in heat. We love our life on the Cape and wouldn't change it for a business anywhere."

Mrs. Blakeman's advice to anyone starting a small business can be summed up in one sentence, "Roll up your sleeves and do a lot of the work yourself."

Such an enterprise can be started with as little as one hundred dollars capital and a home washing machine. Much of the output may be sold by mail. Large users of wiping cloths are automobile dealers, office buildings, printers and manufacturing concerns. Profit averages about 30 per cent of the selling price.

The Bulletin, published monthly by The Sanitary Institute of America, an organization of wiping-cloth manufacturers, 105 W. Monroe St., Chicago 3, Ill. and the Waste Trade Journal, 425 W. 25 St., New York 1, N.Y., will be helpful to a man going into this business.

Mr. Burton wondered if he couldn't repair the valuable dolls, although his previous experience was limited to restringing the broken necks of his daughters' dolls. But Mr. Burton took the right first step that eventually paid off in a profitable business. He spent his lunch hours at the nearby State library absorbing all that he could find on the subject of doll repairing.

Next, before tackling the china infants, he paid a visit to a Washington jobber's supply house to get a line-up on the materials he would need to pursue what soon developed into a very profitable hobby. Although he was not familiar with the doll repairing business technique, he did have behind him many years of interest and experience in various other fields of art. A former art student, he had worked as an artist and display man for sixteen years before he went into the Highway Department. As head of the model department, he had designed and modeled replicas of highways and bridges that had been used in Virginia's progressive road system.

This previous training and experience was invaluable to the new doll repairer, but there were many tricks of the trade yet to be learned as he operated on his children's dolls and those of their friends. Encouraged by the results and by praise from neighbors and acquaintances, Burton ran a two-inch advertisement announcing that he was now in the doll repairing business—for profit. Scheduled to run for thirteen Sundays, the advertisement had to be canceled after the fifth, for by that time it was hardly possible to locate Burton among the legs, heads, and arms in the small workshop adjoining his house.

Mail orders compose a large part of Burton's work, but many children prefer to escort their own injured "babies" to Burton's clinic.

Now well into his second year of doll doctoring, Burton works on a definite schedule from seven to eleven each night, and all day on Saturdays. The clinic operates on a full-time basis, with Mrs. Burton taking orders, giving out completed work, and handling the necessary correspondence. She also helps with costuming old dolls whose owners want them dressed in authentic period costuming. The rest of the sewing, consisting mainly of body stitching, is ably done by Burton himself.

But costuming is not so much emphasized in the business as is the repair end, and looking into Burton's supply cabinet you find such items as teeth and eyes for those dolls who need the services of an optician and dentist. There are also eyelashes and material for wigs of all descriptions. And, of course, there are the bare necessities of all dolls—bodies, heads, arms, and legs.

To mold a missing finger and even an occasional leg or arm, Burton uses composition, filler, or china clay, and then glazes the new appendage to match the rest of the doll. This sort of plastic surgery is very often needed by Burton's best client, the Valentine Museum.

Another specialty is refinishing heads. Many doll hospitals won't touch this job, although dolls frequently need this service. "The trick is using an air brush," Burton confides.

When Burton gives a customer an estimate, he tries to figure about how much time it will take him to do the work. He charges from three to five dollars an hour, depending upon the intricacy of the job. Of course, any new parts that are needed cost extra. To make a profit, he buys these wholesale and sells them at a small markup. His cheapest charge is seventy-five cents. This is for restringing a doll twelve inches or less in height. For this job he adds twenty-five cents for each additional two inches. Even when the bill comes to a dollar, Burton paints on the lips free. This gives the doll a certain snap and pleases the customer.

The doll hospital averages ten to twelve patients a week the year around; during the pre-Christmas rush there are twenty-five to thirty each week.

Many small cities have no doll hospitals, and although it does take a certain type of skill and patience, you could certainly go a long way by taking a page from "Dr. Burton's" experience, and gain much of your knowledge from books.

Runners-up in babysitting are two Seattle men who carry on a lucrative business with 125 sitters on their books. None is under eighteen years of age and, like their Baltimore competitor, they probably list a few bachelors in addition to professional grandmothers and mature women who sit at their work.

Theirs is big business, but every community should have some sort of clearinghouse for baby sitters. Many towns are not large enough to support a full-time employment agency. Perhaps an invalid who was able to answer the phone and interview older women and teen-agers could make pin-money in this way. A commission of perhaps 20 per cent should be taken.

It is not necessary to obtain the store owner's permission to take the picture; this is the gamble the photographer takes. He makes it up in the time it would take to make each sale, as it is much easier to sell a picture already visible than one reposing only in his and the store owner's imagination.

His recording machine cost him in the vicinity of two hundred dollars. As his business comes to be better known, he is often called ahead of time by former customers who wish to be certain that their air speeches are recorded.

He also makes recordings of children's voices right at his bedside, and whole families have gathered there to inscribe on wax a permanent record of the family voices ensemble.

This recorder sends notices to all ministers, and when they broadcast over the local stations, which is often, they sometimes notify him in advance and a recording of their air sermons is made.

One local station carried a "Red School House" program with a different group of children on each broadcast. Since the names and addresses of all children were given over the air, it was a simple matter to contact each parent and offer them a disk of the program on which their offspring had appeared.

Politicians, like other professional people, welcomed the chance to buy their speeches on records. Many of them called to make a record at the bedside; after hearing their original radio speeches, they sought to improve their diction by making another recording.

You could easily make twenty transcriptions or more a day, depending upon the programs; four or more local radio stations are not uncommon in most parts of the country.

The letter that you will send out to anyone whose speech, interview, singing, playing, and so on, has been transcribed by you should be businesslike and state exactly what the record you have for sale includes.

This bed-bound worker will eventually add a tape recorder because its fidelity is so much superior to that obtained by cutting the record direct.

The reason why this man was able to sell these radio programs is that programs originating from local stations are rarely copyrighted. In idea 150 you will learn that some programs are copyrighted before they go on the air, and therefore must not be transcribed and resold.

The first problem in getting started arose from the fact that the city had over a dozen record and phonograph stores. Did any of these stores run a record rental library? The young men checked with each store to find out. Only one rented records, at three cents per record per day, and a minimum charge of fifty cents for three days. In addition, it required a breakage deposit equal to the retail cost of the records, sometimes running as high as nine dollars.

In order to meet the competition of this single competitor, they decided to deliver and pick up the records they rented and charge an additional ten cents over the store price for this convenient service. They now had a real selling point. They ran the only home service rental library in the city.

Having settled the problem of competition, their next important question was who and where were the potential customers?

Several broadcasting stations had classical music programs and had lists of subscribers to bulletins that they published containing a year's listing of all such programs.

If the two boys could obtain the names of a thousand subscribers to one of these station's classical music program bulletins, all living in the city, they would have an excellent start. The classified directories of every major city carry the names of agencies that sell name lists of every type and description. Going through a directory of this kind, several such agencies were found. One of these supplied the desired list of names for fifteen dollars.

The next thing that had to be done was to work out a musical menu—a program of library records for rent. They had agreed not to use their private collections, which had been built up with great love and care, since rented records would get a good deal of abuse. On the other hand, they had about two hundred dollars capital with which to buy records, and if they were going to offer a representative selection to customers, they would have to purchase records with great discretion.

A list of the masterworks of the great composers was drawn up from catalogues, obtained in the stores. Then the two men made a tour of the record stores, letting them know that they had two hundred dollars to spend for records, and that they expected a sizable discount. They finally purchased all their record albums at the store that gave them a 20 per cent discount and offered the same discount on phonograph records and needles bought in the future.

On the average, thanks to the discount, each record album came to about four dollars. A flat four-dollar breakage deposit, instead of the higher store deposit on rented record albums, could thus be asked. Here was another inducement to offer to potential customers.

Having a list of potential customers, knowing what to charge for their service, and having the finest recordings of the masterworks to offer, in addition to a place where they could purchase records, needles, and phonograph accessories at a discount, they asked themselves whether to rent a store or run the business from home with the lowest possible overhead. To keep expenses at a minimum, the boys decided to keep the records at one of their homes, since there was a telephone there. Because people wishing to rent records would have to reach them by telephone, advertising their service and phone numbers became all-important.

For a few dollars, throwaways of post-card size were printed and distributed to libraries, schools, "Y's," and clubs. A mimeographed letter, containing a brief description of the rental service, the cost, and the musical menu, was mailed out to the thousand radio listeners. They were urged to phone (charges reversed) for immediate service. One man was assigned to hug the phone for incoming calls, while the other began a follow-up door-to-door canvass of all those who had received letters.

The first callers made requests for records not in the library. One woman wanted recorded French lessons, another needed bird calls for a radio program she conducted. A man called and wanted music suitable for a wedding. Several clubs wanted to know if they could rent records and phonographs for a fund-raising musicale, and so on.

The young men quickly adopted a practical policy. They would try to meet every request. They would run a personalized service.

Accordingly, they searched for and found used language-lesson records, and the Cornell bird series records, got together a wedding music album, and picked up two portable automatic phonographs from a small manufacturer at low cost. Records that were out of the usual run were rented at fees that were well above the regular rental rates, yet not so steep as to make outright purchase more attractive.

From the name agency, a list of five hundred small clubs was secured and a letter sent out to them offering a complete fund-raising musicale service including records, phonograph, and service for five dollars. Up to two hundred dollars could be raised in this pleasant manner by organizations in need of funds. For the boys it meant a splendid way of advertising their rental library, for all who attended the musicales could be given a throwaway worded to the effect that more of the same type of recordings they had just heard were available to each of them at small cost in their own homes.

Gradually, calls came in for records in the library. To these customers, needles and accessories were sold. When phonographs needed repair, the rental library offered this service, too. Not that the owners did the repairs themselves, for they had no skill in that direction. Rather, they contracted with a local repairman to handle all the work they brought in, at a price that allowed them a fair and profitable return.

Along with record rentals, the sale of records began to mount. For holidays or birthdays or gifts, the boys obtained any record a customer desired and delivered it to his home at no more than store cost. On all record sales they made 20 per cent, without having to carry—as the stores did—a huge stock of records. During their usual deliveries of rented records, they carried a few albums of children's records and played these for the kiddies. Such favorites as "Tubby, the Tuba," "Peter and the Wolf," and others, were included. Sales often resulted.

Any record or record album requested by a customer and not in the library was purchased. In this way, customers could enjoy the best and latest recordings at a fraction of the cost of the record. An additional advantage for the patrons was the fact that they no longer had the problem of a spreading collection of albums gathering dust and taking up room. When a customer finished with an album, it was picked up and another one delivered.

The idea that they could enjoy everything they wanted to hear in recorded music for something like fifty dollars a year paid out piecemeal in small rental fees appealed to people. The same records, if purchased, would cost up to $250.

By test, it was determined that the average life of a record is roughly one hundred consecutive runs. At the end of that time the record, while still playable, has lost something of its original sharpness and clarity. Used record albums were offered to customers at one-half the original cost. Resale in this manner further reduced the original album cost by one-half and left no dead, unusable stock on hand.

Over the years a personal clientele has gradually been built up, and what was a hobby has been transformed into a profitable business.

This story of the successful rental library contains many practical hints for all home businesses. The boys had their own enthusiastic ideas, yet they were flexible enough to go along with their customer's desires rather than holding to their own preconceived notion of how they wanted their business to be run; they purchased mailing lists to get names of music lovers rather than wasting postage on a less specialized list; they used imagination in their inexpensive advertising.

The great advantage of wire and tape recorders is their superior reproduction quality and the fact that a complete program can be put together by piecing recordings that are made on various parts of the tape or wire. The tape recorders have greater fidelity than the wire, and are used almost entirely by the larger radio stations for their recordings.

With tape or wire recorders you don't have any break in your programs. One Canadian transcribes weddings by means of a cleverly concealed mike on the altar. It takes both sides of five records to take down the whole ceremony, and each time he turned a record there was a brief silence in the transcription. This wouldn't be true with tape recorders.

Recording weddings is big business for one man who finds that almost every member of the wedding party wants to buy a copy. Recording weddings can start with the conversation as the bride is dressing, with the ceremony and the reception chatter, or it may consist only of the wedding ceremony. Better read up on acoustics before you try any professional recordings, and experiment with many types of needles. Naturally, if you use tape recorders, you will have to retranscribe your material onto records.

Banquets, alumni reunions, bridge parties, club speeches, parties, dinners, and children's parties, political speeches, and so on, all are potential outlets for records. Some stores use loudspeakers, especially at the holiday seasons. Store owners might like to have their voices recorded so that they could speak their own messages to sidewalk crowds.

You can find out all about the technical end, the price, and possibilities in tape recording by writing to the Amplifier Corporation of America, 396 Broadway, New York 13, N.Y. Ask also for their booklet, Elements of Magnetic Recording and 999 Applications. It will give you innumerable ways you never thought of to make money with a wire recorder. Also try Presto Recording Corporation, at Hackensack, N.J.

Up to now, this has been carried out only by the larger, more expensive photographers, but there isn't any reason why it should not be lucrative for the candid camera specialist. The charge would be so much per photo with an over-all rate for the wedding sequence series.

It is very easy to use one of these machines; the most important thing is the method of securing orders. These may be secured by direct door-to-door canvassing of a given area, by mail-order work, or by handling imprinting for individual stores. The company suggests that the one purchasing the machine and carrying on the production end should employ one or two sales people on a commission basis. An attractive kit showing all the items that can be monogrammed should be carried by each salesperson. At first, the owner of the machine would make the calls himself, in order later to appreciate and understand his salesmen's problems. Only when you yourself have been asked all the questions will you be able to tell your salesmen all the answers. This holds true of any business.

Stores that carry greeting cards would welcome having someone right in the town who could imprint names immediately. Many stores have to send their cards off to be personalized; with one of these machines you could give twenty-four-hour service.

You can stamp leather goods as well as plastic and paper. Luggage stores often find it difficult to locate someone to do this. They like to have goods monogrammed because then there is no chance of the merchandise being returned. There are many stores that would appreciate having their goods personalized for their customers.

You can also purchase supplies from the Royal Imprint Company, such as poker chips, plastic coasters, and so on.

If having your own monogramming business intrigues you at all, your first step would be to write the company for all their sample literature.

Once you know exactly what you can offer, you can "feel out" the merchants in your town; don't invest any money until you are certain this service will be used.

You may find yourself arranging with women's clubs to show your wares at their meetings, with a percentage of your profits going into the club coffers.

The items you can purchase from the Royal Imprints, Inc. are all quality goods and your margin of profit is excellent, but whether or not you have the imagination and ambition to get out and sell them, only you know. Ask the company any questions that puzzle you; never hesitate to do this with any business firm.

Another company selling similar machines is the Kingsley Stamping Machine Company, Hollywood 28, Calif. They have what they call The Kingsley Plan for Imprinting Christmas cards. Write to both of these companies if you are interested in offering a personalized monogramming service.

This country is full of abandoned houses (50,000 in New York State alone) and many houses that look hopeless and unloved can be brought to life again. Houses that once were farms and have been given up as farm prospects can be turned into charming and much desired summer homes by anyone who likes hard work and has good taste.

There is more to freshening up a house for sale than mere paper and paint. Sometimes a picture window costing a hundred dollars adds a thousand to your sale price. Unusual scenic wallpaper used judiciously in the dining room or hall can send many a woman into ecstasy, and it is the woman who will buy the house.

The woman who gave up her grammar-school work tells me that anyone can learn to plaster, hang paper, and paint, and that only for heavy jobs such as raising the beams or doing work that requires licensed workers, such as wiring, should outside aid be called in. If this interests you, I suggest you buy a book, Home Guide to Repair, Upkeep, and Remodeling, by William H. Crouse (published by McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.). This book gives you a useful understanding of the various materials, constructions, and systems that make up all parts of the house, from roofing and plumbing to linoleum and paint work. It describes craft techniques and specific repair methods so clearly and completely that you can follow them easily regardless of inexperience.

First Aid for the Ailing House, by Roger B. Whitman (published by Whittlesey House) gives the answers to specific problems in simple, nontechnical terms, as does Home Guide to Repair. Both of these books are as adequate as having a score of skilled workers to guide you.

I have heard a dozen men and women say that they would like nothing better than to buy an old house and remodel it; the profit in such ventures depends entirely upon how much work you are willing to do yourself.

Frederica is a small town and there is no such thing as a Y.W.C.A., a reducing salon, or an athletic club. The population is only about a thousand, but through an advertisement in the town paper she was able to get ten women interested in reducing, interested enough to pay two dollars a week for the privilege of exercising and comparing notes in the basement of her home for three afternoons during the week. Besides earning some money of her own, she also had the added help of these ten women in advancing her own personal cause of reducing, which up to then had gone no further than wishful thinking.

The first thing she did was to enlist the cooperation of her family doctor. For the small fee of five dollars a visit, he came over twice a month and kept tabs on blood pressure, heart action, and other vital matters.

The basement of this woman's home was ideally suited to the project, although any fairly large room would do. On one wall she hung up a large chart bearing each woman's name. Here were recorded height, weight, and body measurements when beginning the routine. Weights were checked each time they met, and body measurements every other week. This constant checking was a great help, since each woman would have been ashamed to show evidence of having cheated on the diet.

This leader, who made her hobby into a pin-money business, mimeographed copies of twenty different exercises for each woman. These were memorized at home, and when they met together they did the exercises to the music of a radio-phonograph; they often spent as many as three hours down in the basement in the afternoon. The first hour was spent in comparing notes, weighing in and measuring, chatting in general. The second hour was devoted to routine exercises, which they strove to do faster and faster each time they met. The third hour was spent in playing ping-pong, practicing golf shots, or playing ball. Once in a while they turned on the radio and did square dances.

When the first course was half over, the woman began to receive inquiries about another group being started, and some of these inquiries came from as far away as thirty miles. Then, too, four of the original ten wanted to lose more weight and to keep on with the course, so she was practically forced to go on.

During the second period of ten weeks she had two different groups—one in the morning and one in the afternoon each at two dollars a person. The expenses were not high. Bathroom scales were purchased at a price of about four dollars, and she made the exercise mats from cotton batting covered with cheap, durable material. All these were used over and over again. She bought a few new march and dance records, and paid the doctor five dollars every two weeks. Later on her husband constructed a shower in the basement out of materials already in the house, and did the plumbing himself.

As a sort of by-product of this basement gymnasium, the owner nets two dollars on every reducing course she sells. About 60 per cent of the women buy these, as well as subscribing to health periodicals, which also give her a small commission. She says:

"There must be many women in small towns who would welcome the opportunity to reduce under such pleasant conditions. I believe that almost anyone interested in this kind of work who has the necessary space could work up an interesting group of women whose hobby, like mine, is reducing."

A photographer doing this work would do well to invest in a voice recorder. These cost in the vicinity of two hundred dollars, and records costing about fifteen cents are sold, after the recording, at a dollar. This combination business should be very lucrative in any town of over 8,000 inhabitants. Recordings of children's birthday parties would be handled, as well as complete family voices. Adult dinner parties are good prospects, especially when only the host knows that the recording is being made.

A few market-survey firms are National Analysts, Inc., 1425 Chestnut St., Philadelphia 2, Penna.; Archibald Crossley, 330 W. 42 Street, New York 18, N.Y.; Market Research Company of America, 444 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y.; Opinion Research, 10 Rockefeller Plaza, New York 20, N.Y.; Elmo Roper, 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New' York 20, N.Y.; Psychological Corporation, 522 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. All of these firms would not be doing a survey in your community at the same time, but if you write to those listed above, the chances are that at some time one of them will hire you.

Interviewers usually receive a dollar an hour plus all expenses.

Anyone wishing to start a magazine subscription business should first contact the leading magazines and ask to represent them. Commissions vary, but seventy-five cents on a three dollar yearly rate is average. Many magazines will give you literature to help you sell their publications, and as you become better acquainted with the magazine world, you can work out combinations at reduced rates suitable to your clientele. Since most of the magazines are well known, many a magazine service is carried on via the telephone, especially for renewals.

One little-known magazine is Profitable Hobbies, published in Kansas City, Missouri, which welcomes agents. This magazine, packed full of ideas for hobbyists yet unknown to many of them, would be an entree to many a craftsman's home. I think if I were selling magazines, I'd start pushing an unknown, such as Profitable Hobbies, to personalize my business; it would not be hard to get the names of hobbyists once you have contacted a few of them.

Mr. White sends out attractive folders each Christmas and "Mother White," "Brother Jim," and "Sister Helen" all have their photographs, as well as his own, in the forty-page booklet to wish the customers joyous season's greetings. The booklet, which you remember from year to year because of its friendly feeling, personalized by the photographs, contains subscription rates, group and otherwise, for almost every magazine published.

Anyone interested in printing Christmas cards, stationery, folders, and the like, may write the Kelsey Company at Meriden, Connecticut. They have hand presses suitable for Christmas card printings, and issue supplies for every type of printing.

Back in the 1920's a New York banker sat at his desk and pondered. No other business, he reflected, was so dependent upon records, their accuracy, and their safety. Nor in any other business were, records so intrinsically valuable, representing actual money—dollars changing hands. The banker, George L. McCarthy, mentally reviewed the many routine record-keeping operations in his bank. There must be some means, he mused, through which bank records could be afforded greater protection with less effort and at lower cost.

Here was a challenge, and the banker tackled the problem, analyzing each step in a bank's daily routine. He sought the advice and help of other bankers. He explored every possibility. And he turned to photography.

A photograph can be made in a split second. It can be made a fraction of the size of the original and then enlarged if necessary. And it cannot make a mistake in what it copies. Here was the speed and accuracy that banks needed. Thus the first microfilming machine came into being.

A microfilming machine, while recording items and documents, reduces them to microsize—7,500 canceled check reproductions, for example, on one hundred feet of microfilm can be stored in a space four inches square and three-quarters of an inch deep.

Bankers first used microfilming. Government agencies, institutions, and business and industrial organizations have followed. Today, microfilming is used in thousands of banks, manufacturing plants, department stores, insurance companies, newspaper plants, and libraries.

Recordak Corporation, a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak Company, at 350 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y., will give you full information about microfilming and how you can rent one of their machines on a monthly basis. I believe that they will give you training in using it, and they develop all films in their laboratories, located in over forty cities.

The boxes should be sold at not over a dollar and their contents changed once a year, or oftener, in order to bring in repeat business. It is not improbable that a tie-up could be made with airplane and railroad companies to sell a smaller box, samples of which you would make up and show to these companies. It is possible that they would be interested in a very small packet, which they would purchase from you and give as a gift to weary little travelers. A few of the overland trains now carry coloring books and crayons, which are given to small children.

Once the boxes are sold on newsstands, it would be wise to contact a large jobbing gift outlet and try to get a monopoly on some of their very small items in toys in order that your box will not have in it only those things which may be bought separately in stores. A compact cardboard box, such as that in which half-dozens of doughnuts are sold, would be an excellent container.

Mrs. Allan Halliday of Providence, Rhode Island, realized how difficult it is to entertain young travelers and she is now keeping eight girls busy on the day shift and eight on the night shift, filling kits for children. A travel kit, a book with a cardboard cover, contains five envelopes, each with something different for the child either to color or to cut out on the train journey. She also developed a Party time Kit. This, too, has five envelopes and contains everything necessary for a party for twelve children, from the invitations to the games to be played. These kits are sold in department stores and gift shops.

Like all wise home careerists, Mrs. Halliday started in a very small way; she had only one hundred kits made up at first. The public liked them right from the first, and now they are being sent to Canada and other foreign countries.

The scope of items that you can conceive for children is absolutely unlimited.

Mrs. Wilder doesn't provide anything fancy. Her formula is to fill children with farm life, good food, love, and play. Some summers she has as many as twenty-five children and Wilder-ness provides everything they lack in their mechanized city lives.

Farm animals fill every child's desire for "real live pets" to feed and water. The yard and orchards are dotted with teeters, tree houses, sand piles, and sliding boards that Mr. Wilder built from his own timber. But even better, the children like feeding pigs, riding in from the field, jumping in the hay, and gathering eggs. And Mrs. Wilder, a vigorous little woman with a young face and lovely white hair, allows them to do all these. That is what a farm camp has that other camps haven't.

Mrs. Wilder hires good kitchen help so that she can spend time with the children. Mr. Wilder lets the campers trail him to the barn to learn what cattle look like, and how a farm is run. He is patient. He has iron-clad rules for their safety and his efficiency.

There's a daily camp schedule with chores, recreation, and naps. Mealtimes bring plenty of plain food—gallons of milk, fresh vegetables, and Mrs. Wilder's delicious whole-wheat bread.

On daily hikes to the nearby "Secret Rock" or "Deserted Castle" and on longer hikes, Mrs. Wilder teaches botany and wild life. Older campers have overnight outings to the forest hostel that Mr. Wilder built. They sleep on fresh pine boughs, cook over a campfire. There's a trout stream for fishing, and station-wagon journeys for swims at North Pond.

On rainy days, campers act out fairy tales in the barn. There's at least one rainy-day circus in the barn. All morning Wilder-ness hums with ticket making and rehearsal. After naps, Mrs. Wilder, her counselors (usually teachers on vacation), mothers, the high-school girls who serve table, and Mrs. Cora Jewett, the cook, are the audience. It's a red-letter day.

All this costs parents about twenty-five dollars a week. Mrs. Wilder provides linens and laundry service.

At first Mrs. Wilder thought it would be nice for her two boys to have more children to play with on the farm and she sold a few city people on the idea of sending their children to her for the summer; each year more children came. Now, one small magazine advertisement yearly, and circulars that she sends out herself, bring Mrs. Wilder more applications than she can accept.

Of course, not everyone would have Marjorie Wilder's particular ability for managing a farm camp. She's a former teacher and was selected by the Maine Farm Bureau as one of the two outstanding homemakers one year.

While she accepts only younger children as paying campers, Wilder-ness alumni come back to help with the farm and housework in order to spend the summer.

Wilder-ness Farm is a happy—and profitable—experience both for Mrs. Wilder and for her young campers. While she gives them health, play, and happiness, they give her something equally priceless. "They keep me young," she says.

Perry's Nut Houses, at Belfast, Maine, and at Seabrook, New Hampshire, are examples of what a location on a highway with plenty of traffic and a little imagination can do.

Joshua and William Treat, both veterans of World War II, operate these nut houses. "You can't run places like ours without taking a lot of kidding," says Josh. "It's a nutty business, but as far as Bill and I are concerned, it's the nuts."

Back in 1929 a man named Perry, who had once owned a nut shop, went to Florida and arranged to have a few thousand pounds of nuts shipped North, where he believed they would find a ready market. To give atmosphere to his place, he called it Perry's Tropical Nut House.

In 1939 the Treats bought the business and started an outside animal display. "The idea," Josh explains, "is to stop traffic. Three or four cars out of every five that pass have children. The kids see the animals and let out a yell. The family stops, wanders in to see the display." Elephants, giraffes, and zebras stand around the yard in a lifelike array on either side of the two-story building that sits back just off U.S. Highway No. 1. A life-sized Old Woman in a Shoe and a straw-thatched native African cart lend additional atmosphere.

The tourist, usually egged on by his children, will stop to look at this unusual display and the next logical move is for them all to go and see what is inside the building. Here the Treats have continued the tropical motif with other animals and the various kinds of nuts (120 varieties) all artfully arranged in their native settings. Naturally, some gifts have been added. You can't have all those people, potential customers, without adding at least a small gift line. Many of the gifts come from the tropics and are often good examples of the arts and crafts of the countries from which the nuts come.

The Treats roast and package the nuts, which constitute the main line. You know you have run into something unusual as soon as you approach the Nut House at Belfast. But how many tourists would stop to go into the square colonial house if it simply said, "Perry's Nut House." Not many; it is the unusual outdoor advertising that brings them in.

You can sell almost anything once you get the tourist inside your door. I can see almost any ordinary house on a well-traveled road becoming an eye-stopper by means of a circus motif. First of all, about half a mile away from the house there could be a large clown cut from heavy plywood, gaily painted and jolly to look at, telling of the "Circus-Land—half a mile on the right—gifts—souvenirs-something for everybody—fun for all—." It would be very difficult for anyone, young or old, not to stop at least for a moment. In addition to the gifts, which would be sold inside the house, there could be pony rides, balloons, pop corn, and anything else reminiscent of the circus to bring in additional revenue.

You might be able to buy old merry-go-round horses and string them out for a few miles to advertise your circus gift shop. You, too, just as the Perry Nut House does, could use stuffed animals, which often can be bought from natural history museums or from taxidermists. The possibilities are there; if this idea interests you, get a block of paper and keep it with you always. Jot down anything that you think would help to advertise your highway shop. Read everything in your library on circuses.

Sometimes a cage of bears or monkeys will be enough to make the tourists stop. One of the largest gift shops in the White Mountains started out as a tiny wooden shack with some Husky dogs. Then a few climbing bears were added. Also each year it was necessary to add a few more feet to the gift shop, until now it is definitely one of the show places of the White Mountains. Except for the animals, I cannot see that it has any more to offer than any other gift shop. But it does have the animals and they do make drivers stop—stop and buy.

Children love animals; they also love Indians. If you use Indians as your motif you can sell all kinds of baskets. Don't try to get too varied a gift assortment if you open up a shop with a "motif." Tourists are free with their money, but they do like to be entertained as well, and if they come in and find nothing that blends in with your advertising, they will feel just a little cheated.

"The gift and art shop operator should endeavor to specialize in the unusual, the unique, the exclusive, insofar as this is possible. But being more or less dependent on manufacturers and craftsmen who produce on a large scale for the national gift shop market, he should create an atmosphere and environment that takes even the most common article out of its rut and idealizes it," says the Department of Commerce.

The best way to do this, you will find, is to make the approach to your highway outlet just as different from that of other shops as you can. Choosing an unusual motif is the easiest way to do it.

My husband, hearing that a studio forty-five miles away needed a radio farm program, wrote to the studio suggesting that a mike be put in our home so that he could give, daily, a ten-minute farm broadcast. In accordance with F.C.C. regulations, a certain amount of time per day must be given by each station to programs of an educational nature, and farm broadcasts are educational.

Although my husband is an Associate Professor of English, it did not daunt him to apply for a farm program. As a matter of fact, the most authoritative books ever written on agriculture came from the pen of an Englishman who never held a hoe.

But no answer came to the letter. So he wrote another. If you have a good idea and you know it has real value, never hesitate to write that second letter. To this application came a polite reply that the station would talk with him; you could discern from the tone of the letter that they certainly did not think much of his idea, but they were polite enough at least to grant him an interview.

Twenty minutes after he entered the station he was hired and the program called "Bob Webster's Farm and Home Digest" has been going ever since.

Two things sold the program to the station. One, Bob Webster has almost perfect diction for New England. Two, he realized that many people neither knew of nor had access to the many bulletins that are printed for them by business firms, extension services, or the United States government. Before he went for the interview, he compiled a list of two hundred of these bulletins that he could obtain if desired. Then, during the interview, he explained that he would offer one of these bulletins to the listeners each morning. It was this idea that sold the station on putting a mike in our house, and the bulletins have been a great success, for although the "Farm Digest" is offered at the early hour of seven each morning, the fan mail resulting from the offering of the bulletins runs in second place at the studio.

You may or may not have the talents to carry on your own broadcast. But there is one certainty—and it applies to newspapers and all other businesses as well—radio and television station managers are as hungry for new ideas as, I hope, you are to produce them.

Therefore your first step is your idea—provided, of course, you use correct English and have a pleasing voice. Listen to your local stations and know exactly what they offer before you go near them. If you should walk in with an idea for a program and have them inform you that they have a similar one already on the air, your chances of ever selling them anything are nil.

Radio competition is keen, but if you can think of a novel idea, your own radio program may be for you. If you can link it up with some business that will sponsor you, your chances are even greater.

She has been known to paint a cottage yellow and add tall stalks of painted hollyhocks along the side walls nearest to the street.

She has stained a house gray, with midnight-blue trim and added maroon window boxes. These window boxes she filled with white petunias at an extra profit, since she bought them wholesale from a florist.

Sometimes she does a complete house herself, but more often she hires high-schoolers adept with the paint brush. She specializes in summer cottages because her nonprofessional painting does not come in for such critical appraisal as it would in town houses. All paint and brushes are purchased wholesale. She also carries workman's insurance on her helpers, but this is not a large expense as it is for only a few months per year. It is very possible that you would have to join a union. You'd have to check for this.

The first Christmas, she sold her entire output of five hundred to one department store. The gardens were made up in her spare time during the year and saved for the seasonal selling. She is now making plans with a box manufacturer to sell her gardens in a container without water, but with the figurines, the seeds for growing the moss, and full directions. For years she went slowly ahead grossing a thousand dollars a year; she believes that now she is ready to expand the sale of her gardens by boxing them to reach many more customers. Women love a touch of the outdoors growing in their homes, and these gardens fill this need.

College students also often need tutoring, and although the University placement services give preference to their own graduate students for tutoring jobs, these students are often too busy with heavy schedules to be of any service.

Feel out your market with personal calls to heads of the departments of the subjects that you are fitted to teach.

The fence specialist who has gone even farther is the Chicagoan who refuses to build anything except rustic fences.