May 20, 2010

Electric EYE Tests Eggs for FRESHNESS (Jul, 1932)

Electric EYE Tests Eggs for FRESHNESS

EVEN an unborn chick can have no secrets from the all-seeing eye of the photoelectric cell. Now an egg may be placed in front of one of these electric eyes, and an electrical meter, calculated in “chicken life” units, will indicate just how far the embryo chick has grown and how long it will be before the youngster will pick his way to the light. Read the rest of this entry »

March 29, 2010

Quick! Lead Me Out! (Jun, 1931)

Please, someone save this pony! He needs help oh so bad.

Quick! Lead Me Out!

And You May Have Me

“Help—I’m caught in these terrible stockyards. I’m hungry! Starving! I don’t know how to get to that big sack of oats on the outside. What boy or girl will lead me out?”
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March 25, 2010

COFFINS FOR YOUR PETS (Jan, 1959)

COFFINS FOR YOUR PETS

By Richard C. Redmond

DID any birds kick the bucket in your house lately? If they did, you can bury them in a miniature bird coffin designed and built by Bob Carpenter of Buffalo, N. Y., founder of The American Pet Casket Co.

Bob’s tiny coffins-for-the-birds idea was hatched one day when he heard a woman complain about the scarcity of suitable caskets for dear departed songsters. He checked the local pet shops and found only a crude wooden box used for the purpose.
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October 20, 2009

Reluctant Taxidermist (Aug, 1954)

Reluctant Taxidermist

Movie editor Bonn retired 27 years ago to enjoy his hobby but now he’s back in business.

By Peter Hill Gannet

TWENTY-SEVEN years ago John H. Bonn, then living in Portchester, N. Y., was a successful motion picture production editor with Paramount Pictures.

Taxidermy was only his hobby and at that time he was rather new at it. He’d been a fan only three years. It had always fascinated him, perhaps because of his love of animals and his appreciation of their beauty. It would be natural for him to try to duplicate nature’s handiwork.
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May 13, 2009

They Grub for a Living (Oct, 1955)

They Grub for a Living

A few wheat beetles in a sack of chicken feed grew into a booming bait business.

By Shep Shepherd

BUGS can be big business. Just ask Marlyn A. Palmer and Ray Wiseman; they’re up to here in them—80 million of them every year.

Palmer and Wiseman raise golden grubs and sell them to fishermen throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada, shipping as many as a quarter-million grubs a day in busy seasons.

The golden grub is the larva of the black wheat beetle. It hatches from an egg, remains a grub for a short time, then goes into the pupa stage from which it gradually changes into a mature beetle. The complete transformation takes about six months. It is the larva, or grub, that drives fish frantic and sends anglers flocking to the bait shops. Read the rest of this entry »

March 3, 2009

CASH CROP (Jun, 1936)

CASH CROP for you every week in the year raising Royal baby birds. Orders now waiting for hundreds of thousands. Easy to raise. You pet your money for them when only 25 days old. Particulars and picture book for three-cent TL S. stamp.

Write PR Company, 602 Howard Street Melrose, Massachusetts. Refer any bank.

November 5, 2008

Catching Fish at the Corner Lot (Aug, 1931)

Catching Fish at the Corner Lot

NEAR the “Miracle Mile” on fashionable Wilshire Boulevard in Hollywood, an artificial miniature lake and trout stream have been created. The property, valued at $750,000 is owned by Ruth Roland, movie actress, and it is she who has launched this enterprise almost in the heart of Hollywood.

No expense has been spared to make this a fisherman’s ideal paradise in miniature. The pool has little appearance of artificiality, and although it is only 150 feet long, 50 feet wide and 4 feet deep, it holds 225,000 gallons of water. Read the rest of this entry »

October 21, 2008

Attic-Raised Silk Worms Forecast $100,000,000 Industry (Sep, 1936)

Attic-Raised Silk Worms Forecast $100,000,000 Industry

A $100,000,000 dollar industry, producing nearly a million new jobs, can be brought into the United States with the introduction of silk worm raising, John Ousta, a silk expert from Turkey, believes. As further proof of his claims, he has begun the raising of silk worms in the attic of his home in The Bronx, New York.
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October 11, 2008

Battling Deadly Crocodiles to Bring ‘Em in Alive (Aug, 1931)

Battling Deadly Crocodiles to Bring ‘Em in Alive

Capturing crocodiles alive along banks of Florida rivers proves to be an extremely hazardous, but at the same time an extremely lucrative occupation. If hunters can get close to a crocodile, they shoot him through the head to prevent damage to body skin. If close range shot is not possible, the “croc” is then trailed to his lair in under water burrow along river bank, in which he is imprisoned by means of board over entrance. Hunters locate the saurian’s head by prodding with iron rod, then dig a hole to the burrow. A gaff is next hooked under crocodile’s jaw, and he is pulled out.
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October 1, 2008

Armadillo Farm is Oddest Money Maker (Jan, 1933)

Armadillo Farm is Oddest Money Maker

by Edward B. Cope

Animals have been trapped for furs since the beginning of time, but the armadillo, queer armored creature of the Southwest, is only animal which is “shelled” to bring a cash return to farmer engaged in business of raising it.

THE strangest occupation in the world— that of raising animals which will later become articles of home decoration and furniture—is carried on by Charles Apelt on his armadillo farm near Comfort, Texas, 55 miles from San Antonio.
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July 30, 2008

Beavers Staging a Comeback (Jun, 1934)

Beavers Staging a Comeback

BEAVERS may once more become the basis on which all furs are valued if experiments now being conducted by the National Parks branch of the Canadian government are successful. Once the coin of the realm, beavers became so scarce that today no white man may trap them in the Dominion, and Indians may do so only in limited areas. Beaver fur is scarce, where once it was the standard on which all fur dealings were based.
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July 19, 2008

Hatching House Flies For Profit (Oct, 1939)

Hatching House Flies For Profit

IN AN ODD SKYSCRAPER FARM, DOMESTIC PESTS ARE RAISED FOR MANY CURIOUS PURPOSES

By FRANK CAPORAEL

SEVENTEEN stories above one of the busiest streets in New York City, America’s strangest livestock farm has its barns and pastures. The barns are glass jars. The pastures are mesh-inclosed cages. And, the product of this skyscraper ranch is house flies—5,500,000 flies a year!

The unique enterprise started ten years ago when scientists of an insecticide company wished to make exact tests of the effectiveness of their product. They needed normal, healthy flies on which to test the sprays. From this small beginning, the fly farm has grown to the mass-production activity of today.
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