Page 149 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

bowl of goldfish with “Mr. Fish’s compliments.” That breaks the ice. The
salesman then proceeds to find out if the customer has an electric refrigerator.
If not, he sells her one—on the installment plan, of course. If she has a
refrigerator, he sells her a washing machine or some other electric appliance.
In this way the company’s customers are kept on the books year after year.

Cleaning Up on Turkeys

W

HEN Mrs. Paul Engle, of Pulaski County, Indiana, decided to raise turkeys
instead of chickens, she didn’t realize the “clean-up” she was going to make.
“Everybody was raising chickens,” Mrs. Engle said, “but only a few were
paying attention to turkeys. So I began with turkeys on a small scale. In 1933
we had a thousand turkeys which we sold at Christmas time at twenty cents a
pound, and we were well satisfied with our profits.” As the average turkey
ran to a little over ten pounds and her cost for each of the birds was about 50
cents, she had a profit of about $1,400 for that one season.

The work connected with the care and raising of the turkey poults did not
bother Mrs. Engle in the least. “Work,” she said, “is a tonic for anybody.”
She converted the former chicken house on the farm into a large turkey
house. It was a big job but proved worth the effort. As she places day-old
poults in this turkey house, everything connected with it must be kept safe
and sanitary. Before placing the baby poults in the old chicken house, the
floor, which is cement, was scrubbed with lye water. Every piece of
equipment was cleaned and scrubbed, and the house fumigated. A sun pen
was built just outside this chicken house. The sun pen was a collapsible
affair, arranged so that it could be quickly taken down, and put out of the
way. It consisted of frames covered with wire, and cost but little to make. In
good weather, the young poults were permitted to run in this sun pen. After
the oats harvest was completed, the turkey poults were turned into a small oat
field, which was used as a turkey range.

The entire cost of rearranging the chicken house and building the turkey pen
was less than $100. Mrs. Engle did not buy brooders and incubators for the