Making Home ProfitableSaint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Science
Making Home Profitable
Saint Maur, Kate V. (Kate Vandenhoff)
Agriculture; Country life
On the opposite page, in pencil, are suggestions for catch crops and
rotation for main planting for a period of five years. Small note-pads
with pencils attached are fastened up in every stall or pen of each
outbuilding, and events are jotted down as they occur, so that there
is no chance of forgetting or getting things mixed. Every Saturday the
sheets are torn from the pads and brought to the house, for the items
to be transferred to the different books. It does not take half an hour
each week to do the clerical work, and it saves innumerable mistakes
and accidents, besides furnishing proof of the relative value of each
animal and piece of land.
On one side of the expense book all money spent is entered; on the
other, all moneys received. A balance is struck every month and
transferred to a general ledger, which, in turn, is balanced once a
year.
Another thing that must be understood is that all profits must not be
considered as a bonus to be used for personal pleasure. Some part of
all moneys received should be set aside as working capital, otherwise
improvement and extension are simply impossible.
Marketing home products advantageously is of paramount importance, and
seems to be the point on which many beginners fail. Commission men
and wholesale markets should not be resorted to, because home-grown
products of all descriptions excel in quality and not in quantity;
therefore, appeal to high-class private custom, who desire the very
best, regardless of price.
I have never sold through any of the ordinary market channels, yet
have always had more orders than I could fill and received a little
more than the ordinary prices. Naturally the location of the home and
the quality of the wares must influence the returns to some extent,
but not half so much as the method of packing and shipping. Nicety in
these respects captures the favor of customers and they take pride in
exhibiting things to their friends--which is the very best sort of
advertising a home business can have.
When I had reached the point where I knew that I could depend on a
certain number of eggs regularly, I wrote to a doctor friend in the
city and told him that I could promise to deliver six dozen strictly
fresh-laid eggs twice a week for the whole year, at a uniform price
of forty-five cents a dozen; customers to pay the express charges,
which would be twenty-five cents on each six dozen. (Express companies
return empty packages free of charge.) Within a month he had found four
customers for me, who would take two dozen a week each, the box to be
delivered at his house, where the other three customers were to call
every Saturday and Wednesday.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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