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Big Profits in Back Yard FROG Raising

A back yard is large enough to start the thriving business of frog raising. How to build up a big income with a very small investment is told in the following article. The white meat, with a taste similar to a tender, juicy squab, is greatly in demand.

by S. L. SCHUTT

WHEN Charlie, of the De Luxe Cafe, told me that he would have to discontinue serving frog leg dinners because his wholesaler couldn’t supply the frogs, I became vitally interested in an industry that has proven to be more profitable, entertaining, and healthful than any other I have ever known.
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MOUSE MILK $10,000 a quart

BY LESTER DAVID

THE Columbia University medical school has given M. D. degrees to 3,000 assorted black and white mice. The M. D. stands for Mouse Dairy.

Elsie the Borden cow would probably look down the side of her dainty nose at Juniper the Columbia Mouse because of the latter’s scanty milk output. Juniper yields a mere cubic centimeter every few months and the entire kit and kaboodle of 3,000 is good for only two quarts a year. Elsie can sniff but Juniper, in her academic robe and rakish mortarboard, can snub right back because Elsie just isn’t in her social class. Read the rest of this entry »

it’s fun to earn RAISING HAMSTERS

Cash in on the growing demand for SYRIAN GOLDEN HAMSTERS recently introduced into the U. S. Ideal pets . . . big laboratory demand. Hardy, clean, odorless. Easily and profitably raised anywhere.

AKOPIAN HAMSTERY
the largest in the West
write for FREE booklet
7358 H VARNA AVE. NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CALIF.

Colored Chicks to Order

FRANKLY, we didn’t believe it either. But the evidence looks pretty convincing. It seems that down in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a certain experimental-minded senor named A. R. Zeno injected two dozen eggs with various vegetable dyes two hours before hatching time. When the chicks broke through their shells they were peeping happily and were apparently quite normal except that their feathers were bright blue, red, green, pink and lilac. And here they are as they arrived by Pan American air express eight hours later in New York City. Read the rest of this entry »

Enterprising News Vender Trains Dog to Peddle Papers

CHICAGO has the ideal street corner newspaper vender. He can’t shout, because this “newsboy” is a dog—a well trained police dog that energetically goes about the business of peddling papers.

The dog has been trained by his master to carry a newspaper in his mouth in such a manner that the headlines are well displayed. The dog wears a little Swiss hat, which bears the legend, “Buy Your Papers From Me.” To a bit of harness is attached a tin cup. When a coin is dropped in the cup, the dog is trained to release the newspaper. As soon as one paper is sold, it is replaced by the dog’s owner.

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RAISE YOUR OWN SILK

Here’s an easy, profitable, spare time job for several million Americans that can make the U. S. world’s largest silk producer.

by Roger Clay

HAVE you ever considered growing your wife’s silk stockings at home? Well, it can be done. That is, the silk thread can be produced at home, in your spare time, at very little expense—and it will pay you a nice profit.

John Ousta of New York City, a naturalized citizen of Turkish birth, with a 400-year family tradition of silk producing behind him, is convinced this country can make enough silk to meet the whole world’s demands. One-third of our farming population, raising only one ounce of eggs (30,000 to 43,000 worms) regularly in their spare-time, could do it! And a silk industry on that scale would employ a quarter of a million people in reeling factories alone.
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Lone Girl Raises 15,000 Chickens In Indoor Cages

ADOPTING a system invented by Milton H. Arndt, of Trenton, N. J., a 19 year-old Long Island girl, Lillian Swenson, is raising and taking care of 15,000 chickens indoors. The chickens never see or need the sunlight for the necessary vitamin “D” is supplied in their food.

Each chicken has its own wire compartment measuring about one and a half feet square. Compartments are arranged in batteries of 100 chickens each making it possible to house them in a small area. Running water and individual feed troughs are located in each compartment.

Through the use of the indoor compartment system, using cellars, lofts, etc., and feeding the chickens scientifically balanced rations, mortality rate has been cut from 40-60% to less than 1%. So successful is this method that a large New York hotel raises its own chickens on the roof. The flavor of the eggs is said to be superior to those of barnyard chickens.

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RAISING GOLDFISH BY THE MILLION

IF YOU own a goldfish, the chances are two to one it came from Martinsville. This southern Indiana town is the goldfish center of the world. Seventy-five million fish have begun life in the 600 ponds of its famous Grassyfork Fisheries.

When I spent a week, not long ago, watching the work of caring for these miles of goldfish, 10,000.000 baby fish had just rolled from their round white eggs and were darting about ponds and hatchery tanks. For the older fish, men were cooking mush breakfasts in giant 7,000-pound boilers. Other employees were busy shooting weed-killing chemicals into ponds; stalking watersnakes, musk-rats, fish hawks; sorting, counting, packing goldfish and sending them racing across country in a giant truck that resembles a submarine and can carry 200,000 fish in a single load.
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He’s a Rat Farmer

A strange little livestock ranch in the attic gave Norton McKinney a new life and a $10,000 crop.

By William Gilman

“FUNNY kind of a business for a fellow to get into,” the villagers shake their heads as they glance up at the old mansion Norton McKinney bought in quiet little Middletown Springs, Vermont.

And it is a funny setup, all right. The attic in his antiquated home swarms with rats—mice, too. Last time he took a census there were 1500 adult rats and mice, with new litters running up the rodent population practically every day. You’d think his wife Georgia would raise the roof about that ratty situation up in the attic—but, no, she only wants to hear more rats racing around over their heads. She even helps him nurse and coddle new-born rats with germ-free water and purify the air they breathe with ultra-violet lamps. No wonder their place is called Funny Farms!
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ARMADILLOS BRED ON TEXAS RANCH
One of the most curious industries in existence is conducted by a rancher near Comfort, Texas, who breeds armadillos and from their shells and bony tails makes lamp shades and armadillo baskets. Starting with a few of the creatures and a small plot of ground, he now has a ranch that extends over many acres. The thousands of armadillos bred by him furnish a great part of the shells used in the manufacture of ornaments in this country. Since the animals leave their burrows only at night, their capture is limited to the hours after dark. As many as 250 of the shell producing creatures have been taken in a single night.

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He Runs a Hotel for Bats

PLAYING host to 250,000 bats is the queer but profitable hobby of Milton F. Campbell, of San Antonio, Tex. His lakeside bat hotel, a tall wooden tower shaped like the base of a windmill, is the outgrowth of experiments begun years ago by his father, Dr. Charles A. R. Campbell, at that time city bacteriologist of San Antonio. Believing that bats would rid the area of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, Dr. Campbell spent years trying to induce the creatures to settle in a wooden roost which he constructed near the city sewage plant. Finally, by means of ear-splitting phonograph records, which drove the bats from their accustomed haunts, he effected their transfer to his specially constructed tower.
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This is how we end up with killer bees.

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How Science Made a Better Bee

Amazing new discoveries bring improvement to nature’s masterpiece, enabling the busy little insect to do a better job for war.

By ALFRED H. SINKS

Photographs by WILLIAM MORRIS and ROBERT F SMITH

THE tiny honeybee—far more important to both war industry and our food supply than most people realize—is getting a lot of attention nowadays. Though nature has produced few animals as remarkable as these industrious little insects, entomologists and geneticists have found the means to improve on its handiwork. They are actually producing bees that work harder and so produce more honey—bees that are more industrious and energetic, healthier, and better able to protect their bee cities against natural enemies. Truly amazing are some of the results of this partnership of science and nature, and its future achievements may be greater still.
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