A DEAL IN CUT RATE TICKETS.

1895

Two Theater Goers of Unequal Purses Accommodated by a Broker.

A young man entered a shop which displayed the sign, "Theater tickets at cut rates," on a Saturday afternoon about 2 o'clock and said to the ticket broker:

"What have you for matinee at Palmer's?"

"Dollar an 'af orchestry for $1," replied the proprietor, a sharp looking man, with a large diamond stud in his shirt.

"Haven't you a 50 cent admission? I only want to spend a quarter."

"Nope. Give you that orchestry for 75 cents."

"No," said the young man as he scanned the blackboard on which were chalked the attractions at the different theaters.

"Say," argued the speculator, "how much you got in yer jeans?"

"Fifty cents," was the reply after a little hesitation.

"All right," came back from the cage. "I'll go you. You just wait here for a pardner."

The young man walked nervously up and down the shop anxiously watching the clock, the door and the proprietor. Whenever a customer came in he listened attentively to the conversation. On the other hand, the speculator didn't seem in the least impatient.

At 20 minutes past 2 a tall man stalked in and asked:

"Have you an orchestra chair for Palmer's?"

A look of hope spread over the young man's face as the proprietor answered in the affirmative, and the tall man asked the price. But his look turned to consternation as the speculator answered:

"One dollar."

"Why, I thought you said 50 cents," the young man blurted out.

The speculator gave the young man a wink that would have done credit to a devil fish.

"Oh, I thought you meant those others," the young man stammered as he comprehended the meaning of the feat of facial contortion.

The tall man was satisfied and took the ticket and was told to go with the young man, as the ticket admitted two and couldn't be separated. Then the speculator took the dollar bill of the tall man in his left hand, while with his right he dextrously received and concealed the young man's two quarters.

As they hastened to the theater the tall man remarked in a patronizing way:

"I tell you what, it's a great thing to know all the ropes."

And it was with a smile that the young man assented to the proposition. — New York Sun.

New at the Business.

1895

Scene in a dry goods store which has lately added a cigar department:

Salesman (transferred from linen stock, to customer, an old smoker, — Ah, good morning, sir! What can I show you today? Here are some lovely Henry Clay perfectos — from the same house, sir, that sends us the Clay worsteds, which you will find at the cloth counter.

(Customer looks surprised.)

"Yes, sir, and just look at this pretty bunch of imported Manila cheroots! We have them in all shades and sizes, sir. And the ribbon around this bunch exactly matches your four-in-hand."

(Customer glares.)

"Or perhaps you would like this sweet meerschaum pipe? It is warranted not to change color or show smoke marks."

(Customer gets red in the face.)

"Chewing tobacco, sir? Yes, sir. Will you have a yard or two yards?"

(Customer explodes into violent language and salesman faints.) — Buffalo Express.

Woman As Tempter

1895

The Talmudic Legend of the Fall of Man and Its Results.

In the old Talmudic legend of the garden of Eden it was not Satan who tempted Eve in the guise of a serpent. It was the sorceress Lilith, Adam's first wife, who took this method of avenging herself upon her successful rival, at the same time providing endless torment for Adam, by showing his new wife how to acquire knowledge. For she was perfectly well aware that a woman's first act as a self conscious, thinking being would be to desire a new dress. To be sure, this new dress was only a simple arrangement of fig leaves, quite inexpensive and really becoming to Eve's peculiar style, but it contained in the germ all the subsequent atrocities with which women's attire has so often cursed the earth down to the combination of yards of sleeves and acres of crinoline.

So, according to the Talmud, from the earliest days woman has been woman's betrayer, and in our modern times the subtle art begun by the fair and unscrupulous Lilith is being practiced on an ever increasing scale.

One aspect of this has been set forth in a clever article in The Fortnightly Review by Lady Jeune on the important subject of shopping, in which she maintains that one reason why women spend more money nowadays than before is because salesmen have largely been superseded by saleswomen. "Women are much quicker than men, and they understand so much more readily what other women want. They can enter into the little troubles of their customers; they can fathom the agony of despair as to the arrangement of colors, the alternative trimmings, the duration of a fashion, the depths of a woman's purse, and, more important than all, the question as to the becomingness of a dress. No man can understand all these little refinements. His nature is too gross, too material."

In the "Heavenly Twins" it is said that man was tempted by woman, but it took the devil himself to tempt woman. How much deeper is the insight of the Talmud? For it is evident that when any tempting is to be done, whether of man or woman, the "eternal feminine" leads the field. — St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

All Want What They Can't Get

1895

How a Certain Little Human Weakness Becomes a Factor In the Furniture Trade.

"John," said a furniture salesman the other day to the mover whom he had summoned, "this bedroom set is sold, but it is not to be delivered just yet. Move it out of the saleroom at once and store it somewhere till I want it."

"What's the use of moving it till you send it up to me," asked the purchaser idly. "Why don't you leave it where it is?"

The salesman uttered a queer little laugh and said:

"It is evident that you were never in the furniture business, or you would not ask that question. If I should mark that set 'sold' and leave it here in the salesroom in plain sight, it would probably lose us several good sales."

"How so?" asked the purchaser, with an unbelieving look.

"It illustrates a universal weakness of human nature," laughed the salesman. "Everybody wants what he can't get, and there is nothing quite so attractive to the average buyer as a piece of furniture that somebody else has bought before he came around. If I left that bedroom set out marked 'sold,' half a dozen persons would say before night that it was exactly the set they wanted, and when they heard there were no duplicates they would fuss around enviously, and nothing else in the establishment would satisfy them.

"Eventually they would go off discontentedly and buy elsewhere, though the chances are if there was no 'sold' tag on the set none of them would give it more than a passing glance, while a fair proportion of them would purchase other sets. It is a little human weakness, that's all.

"So arises one of the tricks of the trade. When a dealer sells a piece of furniture of which he has no duplicates, he hustles it out of the salesroom as quick as he can, lest it lose him other trade, but when he sells a piece of which he has duplicates he puts a big 'sold' tag on it and leaves it in open sight as long as possible for a bait for others." — New York Herald.

Had a Cinch

1895

Couldn't Tell Funny Stories, but Knew a Trick Worth Two of That.

A drummer, as the word drummer is understood in these piping times of peace, is a man who tells you a funny story and incidentally takes your order for goods. A faculty of making himself "solid" with his customers socially is one of the most valuable features of a successful drummer's equipment. The commercial traveler is a hale fellow well met wherever he goes. There are houses whose trade is so firmly established and its hold upon their patrons so strong that their goods sell themselves almost, and the solicitor has very little soliciting to do. But even with houses of this character a smooth tongue and a ready wit count for much.

Occasionally there is a man who departs from the old lines, invents a method of his own and makes a great success of it.

"What has become of that man Jones who used to travel for you?" asked one Randolph street jobber of another the other day. "I suppose he has gone off the road. I always thought he never would make a success of it. He was too chilly. He was the chilliest man I ever saw."

"There's just where you're wrong," replied the other jobber, who deals in linseed oil. "He was the most successful traveling man I ever knew. When he was on the road, he kept us jumping to fill his orders. The only reason he isn't traveling for us today is that another house offered him a good deal bigger salary than we were willing to pay, and he is representing the other house now. He was very chilly, as you say. He was that way with everybody, his customers included. He never had a word to say to them about politics and couldn't tell a funny story if he tried. He never talked anything but oil. As soon as he got an order he walked out and never tried to conceal the fact that that was all he had come for. Yet his customers thought he was the best friend they had in the world.

"This is how he did it. As a cold blooded business proposition he decided that the strongest hold he could get on a man would be a hold on his pocketbook. He left the other drummers to do the amusing part of it, but he studied the oil market. He seemed besides to have an intuition about the fluctuations of prices which was almost prophetic. When he saw that oil was about to go up, he sat down and telegraphed to all his customers, 'Buy oil.' They followed his advice, and in nine cases out of ten they saved a lot of money by it. It only took a few experiences like this to convince them that it was a serious mistake to buy oil of anybody else. He was hardly a solicitor at all. When he told a man to buy, he bought." — Chicago Tribune.


Why They Went Off

"Are you loaded?" asked the pistol of the shotgun.
"No," said the latter; "I'm shot."
Then both exploded with laughter. — Philadelphia Call.

Drumming Long Ago

1895

A VETERAN ON THE EARLY DAYS OF SELLING GOODS BY SAMPLE.

Tales of the Times When Canalboats Were Best Means of Transportation — Nothing the Wonderful Growth of Many Western Cities.

"I believe I was the first drummer who went west from New England,” said John B. Curtis of the firm of Curtis & Son, and I am very sure that I was one of the first. I made my first long western trip 44 years ago, and I've just returned from a trip that took me to the Pacific coast.

"I sometimes wonder, when I meet the busy, pushing drummers of today, the men who are used to rapid traveling, the best of hotels and good living generally, I sometimes wonder what they would if they were suddenly put back and made to do as we had to 50 years ago or a little less. Some of the poorest of them would give up their job, but I think that the rest would stick to it and make a success of the business, just as we did in those days.

"Nearly 50 years ago, when the business of selling goods by samples was in its infancy and when the drummer had but just been discovered, we were compelled to make slow trips and of course not many of them in a year. Then it took about three weeks to go from Portland to Chicago, and dealers ordered goods enough to last six months. Then the drummer had to endure many privations, but we were a hardy set and were content with a little — that is, if we could get plenty of orders. The villages were miles and miles apart then, and yet we in some way felt the coming commercial importance of many of them and knew that we must keep in with the men who were trying to build up a trade under what seemed many times to be disheartening circumstances.

"I have passed hundreds of nights camping out when on long trips, with only a blanket for a covering and the ground for a bed. We, who drummed trade in the west then in behalf of eastern houses, didn't mind that, but we did object to the rattlesnake sometimes. It did not pay to have then get too familiar. We were happy when we could travel by canalboat or by steamboat, but the dreadful western stages were what tried our patience.

"Time and time again, but for the fact that my samples and baggage had to be carried, I should have preferred to walk and could have beaten the stages under ordinary circumstances. Many times I did walk, but it was beside the stage, with a rail on my shoulder, ready to help pry the stage itself out of the mud.

"In those days canals were the best. The canalboats would make from two to three miles an hour, but if the time was long the stories told by the captain and passengers were commonly good. The beds were bunks, but they fed us well — that is, as things went then.

"Of course the ordinary everyday meal of the drummer of today, the meal he's inclined to grumble at, would have seemed a Thanksgiving feast to us. We expected little, and commonly got it. Still, as I said, we were content, and even happy, if only business was good.

"The drummers of today won't see the startling changes we have seen who began back nearly 50 years ago. Of course the old time drummers who traveled in New England saw less of the rough and tumble of life than we who went west, and who struck out boldly for trading posts that we were destined in many cases to see grow to be great cities. Still I never went through any of the thrilling experiences people tell of as a part of the life then, and I am inclined to think that adventures come to those who seek for them.

"We made long trips in those days, longer than most drummers would think of taking now, for then one man had to do all he could and cover as much ground as possible. Forty-three years ago I went from Portland to New York, then by canal to Philadelphia, from there to Pittsburg by canal, from there to St. Louis by boat, down the Ohio and up the Mississippi, and from St. Louis to St. Paul by boat.

"In those days St. Paul was but a trading post. There were a few business houses, but I saw a sight then that no man will ever see there again. It seemed to me that there were at least 1,000 Indians at the post trading their furs. They brought them in curiously constructed ox carts, made without the use of a scrap of iron, the wheels a section of a tree, and drawn by one ox lashed to the poles. They were a drunken crowd, all but a few, who seemed to be a committee appointed to keep sober and to see to it that others were not cheated. Sometimes the crowd would give a yell that fairly seemed to take the roof off.

"I went to the falls of St. Anthony and looked at the surroundings. Where Minneapolis now stands there was not a single building. When I was there last, I went to the falls, and as I looked at the great cities I wondered if it was possible that I could have been there before they were built. It seems strange and almost beyond comprehension that my business career could have antedated those cities and even the commercial importance of Chicago itself, but so it is, and I am still a vigorous man."

"You spoke of having visited Chicago 44 years ago, Mr. Curtis. What sort of a place was it then?"

"Then there was but one railroad, a small local affair, rather contemptuously called the milk route. I went there from Buffalo by boat and was five days on the way. I tried to do a little business every time we stopped to wood up on the way, and, in fact, we drummers had that system on the route from St. Louis to St. Paul and along the canals," replied Mr. Curtis.

"I reached Chicago Saturday night and put up at a wooden hotel on Lake street, near where the Tremont house now stands.

"In those days Chicago had but few brick buildings, and the wooden ones were seldom more than two stories high. In fact, I am unable to recall a single building more than two stories high. There was not a sidewalk, except on Lake street, and that was of wood, and the water came up through with almost every step. Steamboats and stages brought people there, and about the most interesting sight was old Fort Dearborn, with doors and log sides pierced with balls. There was not a foot of paved street in all Chicago when I first struck the place, and yet even then — and it was the time of small things — there was that same belief in Chicago and the same dash and push that you see now in that great city.

"The drummers of today are bright fellows, but I can't help thinking if we had slower trade we had better times in the days when we thought three miles an hour by canalboat good time and were content to trudge along behind a stagecoach and not say a word if only our samples were taken through in safety." — Boston Globe.

A Misstatement

1895

Mrs. Spiffins had answered the doorbell of her suburban residence in person. There was a man at the threshold who politely touched the brim of a hat of the vintage of 1892 and began:

"Madam, I represent" —

He did not proceed. Mrs. Spiffins had recognized him instantly, and she interrupted his remarks:

"No, you don't represent! You misrepresent. You were here a year ago and represented that some seed you sold me were those of a celebrated flowering shrub from China, whose blossoms would give me joy the long summer through. When they grew up, I found you had palmed off pumpkin seeds on me. Now, if you don't git this instant, I'll break a broomstick over your back."

He got. — Pittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph.


Trees

I have written many verses, but the best poems that I have produced are the trees that I have planted on the hillside which overlooks the broad meadows scalloped and rounded at their edges by loops of the sinuous Housatonic. Nature finds rhymes for them in the recurring measures of the seasons. Winter strips them of their ornaments and gives them, as it were, in prose translation, and summer reclothes them in all the splendid phrases of their leafy language. — Oliver Wendell Holmes.


The Giant of the Bat Family

The king of the family Vespertilonidae is the gigantic fox bat of the Philippine islands. Specimens of this winged mammal procured for the Minnesota State University museum by the Menage expedition in 1892 are believed to be the largest examples of this species yet obtained by the naturalists, several individuals measuring more than 5 feet from tip to tip of their leathery wings and having heads and bodies as large as the American red fox. This creature has been fully described in "Notes For the Curious" under the heading of "A Flying Fox." — St. Louis Republic.


Not Necessary Now

"Well, Bessie," said her confidential friend, "you've been engaged now for three weeks. Does it seem as you expected it would?"
"Y-yes," replied Bessie, turning her engagement ring round and round on her finger, "only Herbert doesn't bring me any candy now." — Chicago Tribune.

Booming a Cigar

1895

"Do you know how to boom a cigar?" asked the advertising man.

The other man confessed his ignorance.

"Well, I've taken hold of a new cigar with instructions to make it a 'go,' no matter what it costs. Here are a few of the schemes: Of course I use the newspapers first and last, but I've got some other ideas. I've ordered some wooden cigars 6 feet long, which are to be carried through the streets. It takes two men to carry one cigar. Then I've sent out about 25,000 postal cards to men who smoke good cigars, and on each card it says, 'Present me at the nearest cigar store and get a —— cigar for 8 cents!' See? That postal card is good for 2 cents when applied on the purchase of one of our cigars. There won't be many of them presented, but it will be a good 'ad.,' and every man who gets one will be attracted by the novelty of the scheme. Then I'm going to put music boxes in the cigar stores and have the music come out of little organ pipes made in the shape of our cigar and labeled. Every dealer in the city gets a blue print cartoon each morning to hang in his window. Mention of the cigar is the biggest part of the cartoon. I'll send private boxes of the cigars to club stewards and well known dealers. When I've done all that, I'll try something else." — Chicago Record.

Peggy Young's Real Estate

New York, 1895

A sheriff's jury Tuesday morning decided that Peggy Young, of Quogue, was incompetent to manage her business. She is an old colored woman who owns considerable real estate which has lately become valuable. Last November, it is alleged that Isaac Arch, also colored, prevailed on Aunt Peggy to dispose of a $500 lot for a handful of change amounting to $2.64.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Jan. 25, 1895, p. 1.

New York Millinery District

1916

New York, Sept. 10. — With the avowed purpose of shifting the leaders in the millinery trade from Broadway and its vicinity in the section between Bleecker and Fourteenth streets to West Thirty-fourth street, in the Pennsylvania station zone, and to Seventh avenue between Thirty-fourth and Forty-second streets, John A. Larkin yesterday announced the determination of the Larkin and other prominent building interests to proceed immediately with the construction of five sixteen story buildings and one seventeen story structure within the boundaries outlined.

The six new buildings will provide ninety-seven floors of modern show and sales rooms, containing approximately 1,500,000 square feet of rentable floor area, practically all of which huge amount of space, according to Mr. Larkin, already has been underwritten by the leading millinery firms of the city now located south of 14th street.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 7.

Paper Mill Strike

Maine, 1916

Tag day sales in behalf of the Westbrook paper mills' strikers in the streets of Portland netted $140.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 5.

Wouldn't Sell the House

1901

The house in which Joan of Arc was born is still faithfully preserved in pious veneration at Domremy, where it is looked upon almost in the light of a shrine. Passersby invariably cross themselves and utter a prayer for protection as they go by.

The story goes that a rich and eccentric Englishman tried hard to buy the place in 1837. It was at that time the property of a farmer named Girardin. The Englishmen offered to let him name his own price, but the old man held firm. "No, no, no," he cried. "I would not sell it even to a Frenchman, much less to a foreigner and especially an Englishman. People here would call me a traitor and a coward were I to part with the house from which Joan of Arc set out to serve France."

The Englishman convinced himself that further bargaining was useless and went his way.

Soon after an officer from the king's household arrived in the village and asked to speak with Girardin. Before the whole village, assembled in the street, he said: "Girardin, the king has learned that you have refused to sell your house to an Englishman. He desires to reward you, but not in coin. He knows that you no more want the money of the French than of the English, therefore has he commanded me to present you with the cross of the Legion of Honor."

To Rise in Business Life

1910

Some Few Essentials Must Be Kept In Mind, and One of These Is Advertising.

A man may have several carloads of ability. He may have brains and ideas and other desirable things. But all the ideas ever "ideated" will not avail to raise a man who neglects that all important item of advertising. You simply must get attention. Of course, you can get attention by firing off a revolver during office hours, or you can do it by wearing loud clothes and proclaiming your kinship in the sporting fraternity. But most men who have risen from the ranks have carefully neglected to use methods of this kind.

Every office man must act as his own salesman. He must first prepare himself by increasing his efficiency. He must be able to do the work for which he is hired. Not only should he do that for which he is hired, but he must do that work better than it ever was done before. When that item has been attended to it is then time to look about for more work.

The wise employee will keep his eye on the job ahead, or, better still, will look at a job which does not exist, but which should exist for the good of the business. The next step is to think out a selling talk that will get the attention, arouse the interest, create a desire, and bring about in the mind of the employer a desire to do what the live employee desires him to do. — The Bookkeeper.

A Useful Literary Work

1910

Good Literature and Adjustment for Ironing Board Made Most Enticing Combination

It was hard work selling books. The volumes, one of which the agent had to carry with him as a sample, were very bulky and heavy, and nobody seemed to want them. But the agent was a persistent fellow, and even the stubborn Mrs. Butts could not send him away unheard.

"We have all the books we can use," she was saying, "and we really can't afford any more reading matter. Why I haven't even opened the second volume of that Roman History you sold us last spring. Now, if you were selling one of those adjustable ironing boards—"

"I've got just the thing," said the agent, cheerfully. "There are 12 books in this set and you can use either one or two or three, and so on up to six to tilt your board any way you want to. And between whiles when your iron is heating you have good literature right at hand." — Youth's Companion.

Sign Painter's Work – Advertisements on Fences, Billboards

1887

The Sign Painter's Work

Interesting Information About the Advertisements We See on Fences

"That man is a sign painter by trade," remarked a contractor, pointing to a man who was erecting a fence before a building that was to be torn down, "but he finds it pays better to put up fences where building is going on and let out the spaces to advertisers. The big profits in the business have brought about a healthy competition, and everything is now reduced to a fine art. I remember a few years ago this sign painter came to me and offered to put up a new fence free of charge in front of a building I was erecting providing he could use the boards for advertising purposes. I jumped at the offer and thought the man was a fool for making it. The shoe was on the other foot, however, for I should have received several hundred dollars to boot for the privilege.

"This man has brought the business down to a science. He has scores of agents scouring the city for eligible sites, as well as canvassers to drum up advertisements. His fences, which are very neat and attractive, are built in uniform sections and join together on the groove principle. An advertiser can thus have his announcement changed to different localities at will without going to the expense of having a new sign painted. The old method of building a new fence every time made this mode of advertising very expensive, and the lessees often lost money by being unable to let out all the spaces; but the cost is now reduced to a minimum by making the sections to slide in and out like the lid of a box.

"The rates, of course," he continued, "depend upon the location. A sign on Broadway costs the most, but many of the cross streets are nearly as desirable. The big advertisers make contracts by the year. Some of their signs are very elaborate. As soon as one building is finished they are put up elsewhere. The lessee who has a number of these contracts runs no risk in leasing a privilege, because he has his advertisers beforehand, and their signs are ready to slide into position. The first charge is made for the painting of the sign, and then so much per day for its use as an advertisement. The artistic appearance of the signs has improved very much since the introduction of the movable section, for enterprising houses no longer look upon it as extravagant to have trademarks or pictures of specialties correctly painted on a fence. These signs don't remain long in the same place. A building is soon put up in New York." — New York Evening Sun.

Kotex Company Wins Suit Over Name

1932

New Jersey Corporation Restrained from Using Name for Product

Neenah — In a decision made recently by the United States Supreme court Kotabs, Inc., a New Jersey corporation, is restrained from using the name "Kotex" and "Kotabs" in connection with the tablets offered for sale by them under the name of "Kotex tablets."

The decision, which is a result of a suit brought by the Kotex company of Chicago, enjoins the defendants from manufacturing, marketing, selling for sale, or distributing or displaying any boxes, receptacles, labels, etc., bearing the name "Kotex" or the name "Kotabs."

In its decision, the highest court upheld the findings of the lower courts to the effect that the rights of the Kotex company with respect to the word "Kotex" were not limited to the use of the word solely in connection with the single product to which it had been applied by the Kotex company.

The court pointed out that in appropriating the trade-mark of the Kotex company and playing upon its trade name, the defendants intended to appropriate its good-will for which its trade-mark stands and upon which its very existence depends.

—Appleton Post-Crescent, Appleton, WI, Jan. 4, 1932, p. 7.

The Early Day of Modeling: Pretty Girls in Demand

1903

Pretty Girls in Demand

They Can Make Good Money Posing For Advertisements

"Pretty girls were never in such demand as they are today," said an advertising agent, "We need them to pose for photographs for almost every article that we advertise.

"We have found, you see, that nothing catches and holds the eye of the public like a good, clear photograph of a pretty girl. Hence, in I don't know how many thousands of advertisements you behold a charming young woman smiling at you.

"Are you advertising a camera? Then you must have a pretty girl taking pictures. Are you advertising a shoe? You photograph a pretty girl tripping daintily across a muddy street on a rainy day. Are you advertising a corset? Then you must have a pretty girl to wear it, and you are careful here to see that her arms and neck are beautiful. In fine, whatever you are advertising, the picture of a pretty girl will help more than anything else to bring you trade.

"Do you know that there is a firm in the West whose sole business is the photographing of young women, for advertising purposes? In this firm's stock are young women riding bicycles, playing pianos, skating, driving, combing their hair, bathing, doing a thousand things. Whatever you desire in their line they will send you almost immediately on receipt of your order.

"I tell you, in these days a pretty girl has no need to be short of money. If doesn't mind exhibiting her face and figure in advertising photographs she can get all the work at posing that she wants to do." — Philadelphia Record.

Bee-Culture Hobby Is Bulwark Against Evil Fortune of Paralytic

1917

McGREGOR, Iowa.— (Special.)—John Clark of North McGregor, Iowa, is a paralytic and yet earns a living for his wife, little children and himself. Until a year ago when stricken by apoplexy he was a plasterer. He was skilled at the trade, had plenty of work and made good money. Meanwhile he had a hobby. It was bees. He can't remember when he wasn't interested in bees and wouldn't rather be fussing with them than doing anything else. After marriage his wife became interested, too.

They bought a small piece of land on the outskirts of town where lots of sweet clover and basswood grows. Reserving part of the land for the bee hives, Mr. Clark set most of the rest of it to fruit. Apple, pear, plum and cherry trees, raspberry, blackberry, currant and gooseberry bushes were planted. The fruit blossoms would provide nectar for the bees and the bees would pollenize the blossoms, he figured.

The fruit farm was nicely started, the bees were busy in half a hundred stands and the husband and wife had the plans drawn for a pretty bungalow at "Sunnyside Apiary," as they had named their little farm. Then Mr. Clark was stricken with apoplexy and the problem of obtaining money for food, clothing, doctor bills and fuel drove away the dream of the bungalow among the apple blossoms and the honey bees.

When the basswood blooms the first two weeks in July, if there is no wind and the weather is fair the bees in Sunnyside Apiary will store twenty-five pounds per colony in ten days. The honey they make is so good that the proprietor has no trouble at all in marketing it. In fact, buyers this year came to the house for almost all of the crop.

"Do you like the work?" the invalid was asked and his face lighted as he answered:

"It's the most interesting business anybody can have. You never get tired of bees. There is always something new turning up."

The wife answered:

"I love to work with them. Do you know, I have about decided beekeeping an ideal job for women. Success in it depends upon looking after the little things and I believe women naturally do that better than men."

It was then Mr. Clark gave thanks for his hobby. His wife said:

"If you will direct me from your bed, I'll do the work and we'll see if we can't make our bees earn a living for the family."

That was a year ago. November 15 this year they had sold 3,600 pounds of extracted honey and had 500 pounds of comb honey stored in the cellar.

Compete for His Honey

Others are keeping bees in the country nearby, but with nothing like as good results. Mr. Clark attributes his success to good management and to their location near an abundance of sweet clover and basswood. Everybody knows the finest honey is "basswood honey" and nobody knows it as well as the bees.

—The La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press, La Crosse, Wisconsin, January 22, 1917, page 10.