One Thousand Ways to Make Money

65. Doughnuts. – These, too, are tempting to children. Four eggs, one half-pound sugar, two ounces butter, one pound flour, boiled milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, and a few drops of some essence. Beat the eggs and sugar and melt the butter and stir it in; then add a pound of flour and enough boiled milk to make a rather stiff dough; flavor with nutmeg, cinnamon, and a few drops of some essence; cut into shapes with tumbler or knife, and fry brown in hot lard. When done, sift on fine sugar. Made fresh every day and placed temptingly in the window, they will sell fast.

After you are well established, you should sell at least two dozen doughtnuts at a profit of a penny apiece, two cards of gingerbread at seven cents profit each, and three dozen dominos at a profit of five cents a dozen. Total profit per day on three last articles in this section, fifty-three cents.

Section 4. Sweetmeats and Confectionery

If you find that children are your best customers, you may cater yet further to their taste. Remember that your success depends upon your keeping choice articles. It is surprising how children find out the best candy stores, and how quick they are to discern between good and bad stock. By making your own goods, you can sell a little cheaper than the dealers who have to buy.

66. Walnut Candy. – This is something which all children like. Put the meats of the nuts on the bottom of tins previously greased to the depth of half an inch. Boil two pounds of brown sugar, one half pint of water, and one gill of molasses, until a portion of the mass hardens when it cools. Pour the hot candy on the meats and allow it to remain until hard.

67. Chocolate Caramels. – A favorite with girls. Boil a quart of best molasses until it hardens when put in water. Before removing from the fire, add four ounces of fine chocolate. Pour a thin layer into tin trays slightly greased. When it hardens a little cut into squares. You can sell these as low as thirty cents a pound, and still make a good profit.

68. Peppermint Creams. – Take one pound of sugar, seven teaspoonfuls of water, and one teaspoonful of essence of peppermint. Work together into a stiff paste, roll, cut, and stamp with a little wooden stamp such as are bought for individual butter pats.

69. Molasses Candy (White). – All children want molasses candy. Two pounds of white sugar, one pint of sugar-house syrup, and one pint of best molasses. Boil together until the mass hardens when dropped in cold water, and work in the usual manner. Sell by the stick, or in broken pieces by the pound, half, and quarter.

70. Blanched Almonds. – Shell the nuts; pour over them boiling water. Let them stand in the water a minute, and then throw them into cold water. Rub between the hands. The nuts will be white as snow, and, if placed prominently in the window, very tempting. Sell by the ounce.

71. Fig Paste. – This always has a good sale. Chop a pound of figs and boil in a pint of water until reduced to a soft pulp. Strain through a fine sieve, add three pounds of sugar, and evaporate over boiling water until the paste becomes quite stiff. Form the paste into a square mass, and divide in small pieces with a thin-bladed knife. Roll the pieces in fine sugar, and pack in little wooden boxes.

72. Fig Layer Candy. – One half-pound of drum figs, one pound of finest white sugar, white of one egg, one tablespoonful of cold water. Make sugar, egg, and water into a cream, and mold like bread. After figs are stemmed and chopped, roll a fig to one fourth of an inch in thickness. Place the rolled fig between two layers of cream, pass rolling-pin over lightly, and cut into squares of any desired size. Delicious, if well-made, and always salable.

It is astonishing what vast sums accumulate from the children’s pennies spent for candy and sweetmeats. Many cases could be given of persons who have kept small stores, and been supported solely by the little streams of coppers and nickels. Get the children’s confidence, learn their names, always have a bright, kind word for them, and bait your hook occasionally with little gifts of sweets. They will flock to you like bees to a flower-garden.

Section 5. Preserves, Pickles, and Jellies

We put these sweets and sours into one group because they sell best when in proximity. Almost everything depends upon the way they are put up. If the fruit shows artistically through the glass jars, or the pickles are put up attractively in cute little bottles with fresh-painted labels, he must be a stoic indeed who can pass your show-window without a coveting glance. Here are a few of the most popular things in this line:

73. Orange Marmalade. – Take equal weights of sour oranges and sugar. Grate the yellow rind from one fourth of the oranges. Cut all the fruit in halves, pick out the pulp and free it of seeds. Drain off the juice and put it on to boil with the sugar. When it comes to a boil, skim it, and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes; then put in the pulp and grated rind, and boil fifteen minutes longer. Put away in jelly tumblers. Sell large glasses for twenty-five cents; small, for fifteen.

74. Brandied Peach. – The Morris whites are the best. Take off the skins with boiling water. To each pound of fruit allow one pound of sugar, and a half-pint of water to three pounds of sugar. When the syrup is boiling hot put in the peaches, and as fast as they cook take them out carefully and spread on platters. When cool put them in jars and fill up these with syrup, using one-half syrup and one-half pale brandy. This is a very choice brand, and will only pay you where you have customers who are not sparing of their money.

75. Ox-heart Cherry. – Of showy fruits, none can excel this. To each pound of cherries, allow one-third of a pound of sugar. Put the sugar in the kettle with half a pint of water to three pounds of sugar. Stir it until it is dissolved. When boiling, add the cherries, and cook three minutes. Put up in jars that can be sold for from twenty-five to fifty cents.

76. Pound Pear. – They hardly weigh a pound a piece, but they look as if they do with their great white bulks pressed up against the sides of the transparent glass. Take the largest kind, Bartlett, Seckel, or any that have a delicious flavor. Pare the fruit, cut in halves, and throw in cold water. Use one pound of sugar for three of fruit, and one quart of water for three pounds of sugar. When the syrup is boiling take the pears from the water and drop into the syrup. Cook until they can be pierced easily with a silver fork. Fill the jars with fruit, and fill up to the brim with syrup, using a small strainer in the funnel, in order that the syrup may look clear. Sell good-sized jars for fifty cents.

77. Grape Jelly. – Jellies in little tumblers take up small room, and they can be grouped in artistic shapes. Here is a good grape: Mash fruit in a kettle, put over the fire, and cook until thoroughly done. Drain through a sieve, but do not press through. To each pint of juice, allow one pound of sugar. Boil rapidly for five minutes. Add the sugar, and boil rapidly three minutes more.

78. Sweet Pickles – (Apple, Pear, or Peach). For six pounds of fruit, use three of sugar, five dozen cloves and a pint of vinegar. Into each apple, pear, or peach, stick two cloves. Have the syrup hot, and cook until tender. Put up in attractive little jars with colored labels. Jars should sell for twenty-five cents.

79. Chow-Chow. – Here is a very taking kind: Take large red-peppers, remove the contents, and fill them with chopped pickles. The red of the peppers against the white of the glass gives a very pretty appearance. Small bottles that can be sold cheap will be the most popular.

80. Pickled Walnuts. – Pick out the nuts as nearly whole as possible, and steep in strong brine for a week, then bottle, add spice, and fill with vinegar boiling hot. Put up in very small jars. Have a jar from which to give samples if the dish is not common in the place.

There are a vast number of other fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which you can use as custom shall demand. If you grow your own fruit and do your own work, the result is nearly all profit. If you have to buy the fruit, the selling-price should be such as to give one third profit. This is the per cent. which all manufacturers expect.

Section 6. Toilet Articles

These have a perennial sale. They are not confined to any season or age. Most of them, especially the French makes, come high, but they are composed of a few simple ingredients, and can be made by any person of ordinary skill. Here are a few of the best selling:

81. Rose Oil. – Heat dried rose-leaves in an earthenware pipkin, the leaves being covered with olive-oil, and keep hot for several hours. The oil will extract both odor and color. Strain, and put in little cut-glass bottles.

82. Cologne Water. – Take one pint of alcohol, twelve drops each of bergamot, lemon, neroli, sixty drops of lavender, sixty drops of bergamot, sixty drops of essence of lemon, and sixty drops of orange-water, shake well and cork.

83. French Face Powder. – Poudre de chipre one and one-half pounds, eau (water) of millefleurs one and one-half drachms. Put up in small cut-glass bottles and give it a French name. Poudre de Millefleurs will do.

84. Night-Blooming Cereus. – This is a very delicate and fragrant perfume. Spirit of rose 4 ounces, essence of jasmine 4 ounces, tincture of tonka 2 ounces, tincture of civet 2 ounces, tincture of benzoin 4 ounces. Cost $1.65 per pint. Put up in half-gill bottles at fifty cents each, $4.00. Profit, $2.35.

In selling expensive perfumery, remember that the glass is cheaper than the contents, and you should therefore select thick bottles with small cubical space. Tie pretty colored ribbons around the necks of the bottles, and put them, four or six together, in attractive boxes with the lids removed. You must in every way court the patronage of the ladies, and you can in some cases well afford to give a bottle to the leader of a social set with the understanding that she recommend it to her friends.

Section 7. Varnishes and Polishes

With your plants, meats, preserves, candies, and perfumery, you have already got much beyond your show-window. You now have a “department store” on a small scale, and as you make the goods yourself you ought to be making money. There are some things you can add for which the demand will not be great, but then the cost of making is small. Besides, the goods, put up in bright tin boxes with colored labels and built up in pyramids on your shelves, will give your store an artistic and attractive appearance. Here are a few things that might profitably occupy your spare moments:

85. Stove Blacking. – Take half a pound of black lead finely powdered, and mix with the whites of three eggs well-beaten; then dilute it with sour beer or porter till it becomes as thin as shoe-blacking; after stirring it, set it over hot coals to simmer for twenty minutes; then, after it has become cold, box and label.

86. Shoe Blacking. – Mix six parts of fine bone-black, twenty-eight of syrup or four of sugar, three of train-oil, and one of sulphuric acid. Let the mixture stand for eight hours, then add with vigorous and constant stirring four parts of the decoction of tan, eighteen of bone-black, and three of sulphuric acid, and pour the compound into a little tin boxes. Cost, one cent per box; sell for five cents.

87. Furniture Cream. – Take eight parts of white wax, two of resin, and one pint of true Venice turpentine. Melt at a gentle heat, and pour the warm mass into a stone jar with six parts of rectified oil of turpentine. After twenty-four hours it should have the consistency of soft butter. Sell in small ten-cent boxes.

88. Leather Polish. – Beat the yolks of two eggs and the white of one; mix a tablespoonful of gin and a teaspoonful of sugar; thicken it with ivory black, add it to the eggs, and use as common blacking. This will give a fine polish to harnesses and leather cushions, and also may be used as a dressing for ladies’ shoes.

These are the varnishes and polishes that sell the most readily, but you must not think they will sell without advertisement, recommendation, and display. Label them attractively, and tell just what they will do. It is well to have a little hand press so that you can print your own labels, and also some marking-ink for posters. Use ink freely; and, if you can get the recommendation of some townsman who has tried one of your varnishes or polishes, give it a large display.

Section 8. Soaps and Starches

Soaps are easily made and very profitable. Several firms have made fortunes in soap during the last few years. You can make just as good an article in your own home and reap all the profits. With starches, take pains to let your customers know that you have different ones for different kinds of goods. Many use the same starch for all kinds of washing. You must show people that your starches are made especially for various kinds of garments, and that the effect will not be so good if the wrong starch is used, or one kind applied indiscriminately to all kinds of goods.

89. Poland Starch. – Mix flour and cold water until the mass will pour easily, then stir it into a pot of boiling water, and let it boil five or six minutes, stirring frequently. A little spermaceti will make it smoother. When cold, put in pasteboard boxes and sell cheap.

90. Glue Starch. – (For calicoes.) Boil a piece of glue, four inches square, in three quarts of water. Put it in a well-corked bottle, and sell for a little more than Poland.

91. Gum Arabic Starch. – (For lawns and white muslin.) Pound to a powder two ounces of fine, white gum-arabic; put it into a pitcher, and pour a pint or more of boiling water upon it, and cover it well. Let it stand all night, and in the morning pour it carefully from the dregs into a clean bottle, and cork it tight. Recommend this to your customers, and tell them that a tablespoonful of this stirred into a pint of starch made in the ordinary manner will restore lawns to almost their original freshness.

92. Starch Luster. – This is a substance which, when added to starch, gives the cloth not only a high polish, but a dazzling whiteness. To produce this result, a little piece the size of a copper cent is added to half a pound of starch and boiled with it for two or three minutes. Now we will give you the whole secret. The substance is nothing more than stearine, paraffine, or wax, sometimes colored by a slight admixture of ultramarine blue. You can buy it in quantities for a trifle, and sell it in little balls or wafers at a profit of 500 per cent.

93. Hard Soap. – Five pails of soft soap, two pounds of salt and one pound of resin. Simmer together and when thoroughly fused turn out in shallow pans so as to be easily cut. This costs little more than the labor and by being able to undersell rivals you should have a monopoly in soap.

94. Savon d’Amande. – This is a celebrated French toilet soap. The recipe is French suet nine parts, olive oil one part, saponified by caustic soda. Toilet soaps are also made of white tallow, olive, almond and palm-oil, soaps either alone or combined in various proportions and scented. The perfume is melted in a bright copper pan by the heat of a water bath.

Section 9. Soft Drinks

You may now if you have a counter try a few soft drinks. A soda fountain is expensive and perhaps would not pay at this stage, but you might try it when you have more capital and customers. First try. —

95. Root Beer. – Get a bottle of the extract, and make it according to the directions. Cost of ten gallons extract and sugar, $1. Put up in pint bottles at five cents a bottle $4. Profit, $3.

96. Ginger Pop. – Put into an earthen pot two pounds of loaf sugar, two ounces of cream tartar, two ounces of best ginger bruised, and two lemons cut into slices. Pour over them three gallons of boiling water, when lukewarm, toast a slice of bread, spread it thickly with yeast and put it into the liquor. Mix with it also the whites of two eggs and their crushed shells. Let it stand till next morning. Then strain and bottle. It will be ready for use in three or four days. Profits about the same as the last.

97. Lemonade and Orangeade. – Get juicy fruit, and allow one orange or lemon to a glass. The tumblers for orangeade should be smaller than those for lemonade. Profits about two and one-half cents a glass.

Have your counter for drinks as near the door as you can. Keep your bottles on ice. Make your lemonade to order, and let it be known that all your beer is home-brewed. Ask your patrons if they like it, and take kindly any suggestions they may make. Let them know you want to please them.

Section 10. Dairy and Other Farm Produce

If you live in the country, or if your grounds are large enough, you can add immensely to your profits by keeping a cow, a pig, some poultry, and a few hives of bees. You will now need help – a boy to milk your cow, run on errands, and deliver goods; and a girl to help you in the work-room and to assist in the store.

98, Golden Butter; 99, Fresh Eggs; 100, Sweet Milk; 101, Sparkling Honey; 102, New Cheese; and 103, Clean Lard, are among the attractions and the sources of revenue you can add to your already prosperous business. Churn your butter till it is entirely free of the milk, salt it well and put it up in tempting balls, rolls or pats. A little finely-strained carrot-juice will give it a golden color without any disagreeable taste. For poultry, the Wyandottes and Plymouth Rocks are the best year-round layers. Have a sign “Eggs Laid Yesterday,” or “This Morning’s Eggs.” Sell milk by the glass, pint or quart; only be sure it is always fresh. Get a small cheese-press, and if you find a good sale for your cheese, milk, and butter, add to your stock of cows. Find out which of the three dairy products pays the best, and work accordingly. Invite people to taste your good things, and tell them that everything is homemade and fresh. Bees are perhaps the most profitable things in the world, as they entail no expense after the first outfit. Have honey both strained and in the comb as you learn the wants of your patrons. The pig will keep you in meat a large portion of the year, besides supplying to your store a limited quantity of nice white-leaf lard, which should be sold in little bright tin pails.

104. White Pork. – If you do not care for swine’s flesh, you can sell it for from twelve to twenty cents a pound. People are glad to buy fresh-killed meat and to pay a good price for it when their ordinary purchases have been many days slaughtered, and often freighted a thousand miles.

105. Poultry to Order. – Do not keep your hens beyond the second year, as they are not so good layers after that age. Have always a stock of fat fowls ready for market. Spring Chickens. Here is another line in which you can invest. A chick costs in feed about twenty-five cents for the season, and they sell readily for a dollar a pair.

Section 11. Garden Vegetables

If you have a small garden, you can supply your store with fresh vegetables during the season. It is very important that they should be fresh. Having your own garden, you can guarantee that quality to your customers. Take orders for the following day so that the vegetables may come straight from the garden into the hands of the consumer. Here are the six which grocers say sell for the largest profit.

106. Cut-to-Order Asparagus. – Asparagus is at least one-half better when newly cut. Choose the white variety, and tie in small bunches. Sell at fifteen cents a bunch.

107. Quick Market Strawberries. – Pick them fresh every morning. Put them in the usual boxes, and set them on a stand in front of the store. Have one or two large ones on the top of each box, and lay around them two or three strawberry leaves wet with dew.

108. Round Tomatoes. – If possible, have them so fine and large that five will fill a quart box. Sold even as low as five cents a box they are very profitable. This is at the rate of a penny apiece, and a thrifty tomato plant will bear fifty.

109. Pint Peas. – Peas in the pod are not attractive, but very young peas when shelled and put in little bright tin pails are irresistible. The very sight of them tickles the palate. Rise early, and pick and shell a pint of peas. If they do not sell, you can have them for your own dinner. Do not keep them overnight, as the succulent quality is soon lost after shelling.

110. String Beans. – Nothing easier to raise, nothing easier to sell. You can raise a bushel on a square rod if properly managed. Sell at fifteen cents a half-peck.

111. Green Corn. – Sell at twenty-five cents a dozen ears. Be careful to pick before the kernels become large. Have a notice, “Corn Picked to Order.”

We have found out from the grocers what garden products sell the best. Now, suppose you have only a single rod of ground (about the size of a large room), and want to know how to plant it to the best advantage. Below will be found a comparative table of what, under generous cultivation, may be expected of each of the above in the way of hard cash from a single rod of soil.

Asparagus (40 bunches at 15 cents a bunch), $6.00; strawberries (33 baskets at 15 cents a basket), $4.95; tomatoes (150 quarts at 5 cents a quart), $7.50; peas (16 pints at 25 cents a pint), $4.00; beans (1 bushel at 15 cents half-peck), $1.20; corn (8 dozen ears at 25 cents a dozen), $2.00.

If you have twenty square rods instead of one, your revenue from your garden may be increased by that multiple, and you will have an opportunity to try all the above sources of profit. Find out what fruits and vegetables sell best in your neighborhood, and plant accordingly. And remember that the key to your success in garden produce is the single word fresh.

Section 12. School Supplies

There are a number of articles in use in our schools which can be made at home. Once let it be known that you can make and sell as good a quality as the imported article, and at a cheaper price, and you will have the patronage of all the schools in your vicinity. Advertise wisely, and in cases where the trustees furnish the things, make a low bid for the entire school supply.

112. Book Covers. – Save all your paper bags, iron them out smoothly, and make them into book covers. Sell them at three cents apiece, or take the contract to cover all the books in the school at two cents apiece.

113. Artificial Slates. – Take forty-one parts of sand, four parts of lampblack, four parts of boiled linseed or cottonseed oil. Boil thoroughly, and reduce the mixture by adding spirits of turpentine so that it may be easily applied to a thin piece of pasteboard. Give three coats, drying between each coat. Finish by rubbing smooth with a piece of cotton waste soaked in spirits of turpentine. You have an excellent slate or memorandum book, which may be sold for ten cents. Use a slate pencil. Made in large quantities, these are very profitable.

114. Cheap Ink. – Boil one and a half pounds of logwood with sufficient residue water to leave a residue of two and a half quarts. When cold, add one and a half drams of yellow bichromate of potash, and stir thoroughly, and the ink is ready for use. The above will fill twenty-five large ink bottles, which, at five cents apiece, come to $1.25. Cost, 25 to 35 cents.

115. School Bag. – Take a piece of cheap white linen and make it into a pretty bag, with a strap to go over the shoulder. Have a colored stamp to put on the initials of the purchaser. Sell for twenty-five cents.

116. Pen Wiper. – Take any cheap material, and cut in three circles of different sizes. Scallop the edges, and stitch together at the center. If the circles are of different color as well as size, it will be attractive to the children, and still more so if the smallest circle has an initial letter. Sell for five cents.

117. Children’s Luncheon. – Thousands of parents would rather pay a trifling sum than be put to the trouble of providing and preparing lunch. Make a little repast cheap and neat. One large or two small sandwiches, a small dish of jelly or a tart, a pickle or a piece of cake. Put in a collapsible paper box, and tie with red or blue ribbon. Cost about six or seven cents. Sell for ten cents.

Section 13. Christmas Presents

You can do well with these if you are supple with your fingers and nimble with your tongue. Learn what artistic designs are becoming popular, and keep abreast of the latest fads. The fabric called denim is coming more into use every year, and as it is very cheap, and comes in all colors, it is especially suited for making, covering, and adorning all kinds of household handiwork. A ramble through the large metropolitan stores with a request to see the various lines of goods used for trimming and ornamenting will astonish you. The endless varieties of silks, satins, velvets, plushes, linens, laces, feathers, and so forth, should suggest to a lively mind infinite possibilities in the way of made-up articles of market value. Our list below must be taken only as samples of what a fertile mind and ingenious fingers can accomplish.