“The secret of my success is hard work and catering to the taste of my patrons.  Had I opened either a cheap or a showy place in the college town, I would not have gained the good will of the faculty or the patronage of the best class of students.  If my prices had been too high or the refreshments served not up to the notch, the result would not have been so satisfactory.

“Knowing one college town pretty well, I knew just about what was needed in the student’s life; that is, an attractive looking place, eminently respectable, where you can take your best girl and get good things to eat well served at a reasonable cost.

“The needs of the beach were pretty much the same.  People can’t stay in the water all the time, neither can they spin around the country or go to an unlighted village at night in their carriages and automobiles.  My tea room offers a recreation, without being a dissipation.

“Another point about which many people question me is the effect of my being a business woman on my social standing.  I haven’t noticed any slights.  I receive many more invitations than it is possible for me to accept.  I go with the same set of girls that I did while I was in college.

“Two of my classmates are lawyers, more than one is a doctor, and three have gone on the stage.  I know that my earnings are far more than any of theirs, and I am sure they do not enjoy their business any more than I do.  If I had to begin again I would do exactly as I have done, with one exception—­I would lay out the whole of my $300 in furnishing that first tea room instead of keeping $75 as a nest egg in bank.”

* * * * *

(Country Gentleman)

Two illustrations: 
  1.  Half-tone reproducing photograph of dressed chickens with
     the caption, “There is this rule you must observe:  Pick your
     chickens clean.”
  2.  Reproduction in type of shipping label.

BY PARCEL POST

ONE MAN’S WAY OF SERVING THE DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER MARKET

By A. L. SARRAN

If you live within a hundred and fifty miles of a city, if you possess ordinary common sense and have the ability to write a readable and understandable letter, you may, from September to April of each year, when other farmers and their wives are consuming instead of producing, earn from fifty to a hundred and fifty dollars net profit each month.  You may do this by fattening and dressing chickens for city folks, and by supplying regularly fresh country sausage, hams, lard and eggs.

This is not an idle theory.  Last September I began with one customer; today—­this was written the end of March—­I have nearly 500 customers to whom I am supplying farm products by parcel post.

Instead of selling my chickens to the huckster or to the local poultry house for twelve cents a pound, I am selling them to the consumer in the city for twenty cents a pound, live weight, plus the cost of boxing and postage.  Not only that, I am buying chickens from my neighbors at a premium of one to two cents over the huckster’s prices, “milk feeding” them, and selling them to my city customers at a profit of six to seven cents a pound.