He Made “Snake Snaks” Popular

 He Made “Snake Snaks” Popular 

    SEVERAL years ago George K. End, of Arcadia, Florida, helped his two small sons kill a rattlesnake and skin it. The reptile’s flesh, which was a pale, salmon pink, looked inviting and Mr. End decided to taste it as an experiment. To his surprise he found that it had a delicate flavor and was exceedingly tender. Sometime later he served the meat at a convention at Tampa and those who tried it agreed that it was delicious. A number of friends also tried it on his recommendation and pronounced it a real delicacy. He decided that there might be a market for the product and as the immediate vicinity has more rattlesnakes to the square mile than any other part of the United States, he had an unlimited meat supply for his odd business. He established a canning plant and started to prepare and market his product. The main difficulty, of course, was overcoming the prejudice people have about eating snakes. However, Mr. End found enough people who considered his product a delicacy to enable him to build up a good-sized business. People eat eels, snails, and frog legs, so why not clean, palatable snake meat, a product much cleaner than the oyster which so many people enjoy? The snakes are captured alive by means of a noose at the end of a bamboo pole about six feet long, then they are swung into a wire cage and taken to the cannery. Here they are killed the same day if possible, as they will not eat in captivity and, consequently, lose considerable weight. The snake catchers are paid at the rate of twenty cents a foot averaging about $1.25 a snake. The meat is prepared with or without a sauce and orders for raw rattlesnake meat are also filled. The average snake weighs about nine pounds when brought in but much of this weight is lost through shrinkage in cooking and with the removal of the head, bones and rattles. Not cheap by any means, the meat sells for $1.25 for a four and one-half ounce can; the uncooked meat bringing $2.50 a pound. The meat is also smoked in the same fashion ham is smoked and marketed as “Snake Snaks” in small bags. In view of the fact that the meat has a very delicate flavor, it is especially delicious served as canapes. Other parts of the rattler such as the head, the rattles, the fangs are made up into ornaments and a rubbing oil is made from the fatty tissues. The skin, of course, is made into hat bands, belts, pocketbooks, book covers, etc. You may not be keen about the idea of starting a snake cannery, even though you live in a snake infested area. However, the way Mr. End made his $1,000 may suggest to you the many opportunities for making money that exist right in your own back yard, so to speak, if only you look for them. 

What You Can Make from Clam Shells 

    MARY COOPER , who lived with her two small children in a cheap rooming house, had lost her job. However, being an ingenious person, she had soon established herself in a nice little business of her own making novelties from clam and oyster shells. She secured the shells without cost from a near-by sea food shop and made them up into novelties. She took them down to the beauty parlor where she had been working and the owner of the shop gave her display space in a window for a commission on all that were sold. Such novelties are inexpensive to make. The materials used consist of common pipe cleaners, clam, oyster shells, and other shells. No particular skill is required. Here is how to do it: Drill a hole in the small end of an oyster shell. Insert one end of a pipe cleaner through this hole and fasten it securely by twisting the wire over and around the edge of the shell, letting most of the pipe cleaner extend upward. Now repeat this operation with a second oyster shell of the same size. Place the two shells alongside each other. Halfway up the length of the pipe cleaners, bend and twist them together for the rest of their length. Next select two small oyster shells. Match and fit them together about the twisted single portion of the pipe cleaners. That portion of the pipe cleaners which protrudes above the shells becomes a neck. Now drill a hole in one side of a small conical shell. Attach this to the top of the pipe cleaner. You now have the figure of a comical man, with two large feet made from oyster shells, a body made from oyster shells, and the legs and neck from the pipe cleaners. The small shell on top is, of course, the head. Arms may be added by cutting a pipe cleaner in half, and attaching to the neck at the juncture of the oyster shells. A small brush and ten cents’ worth of paint will enable you to tint your figures any color. Ash trays and a score of useful items may be easily made in this way. 

Tosdale Sisters Saw Paris on Fancy Pillows 

    THE Tosdale sisters had just finished college, and after the usual round of parties had been given for them in their home town, they developed a bad case of wanderlust. Somehow or other Helen and Mary Tosdale meant to make some money for a trip. There was one thing in which both girls excelled and that was sewing. Both of them had made all their dresses and many of their suits and coats since their high-school days. They knew colors and fabrics and they had style sense. However, neither one of the girls had any desire to develop a dressmaking trade. It would have to be some other type of sewing, they decided. And then they hit on the idea of fancy pillows. The years of sewing in the Tosdale home had resulted in trunks and boxes of both used and unused fabrics and ribbons and edgings. After a check-up, they found they would have enough for quite a number of pillows before they would have to buy any new material. That summer they worked over pillow designs and by November, they had made several dozen unusual and beautiful pillows. Ribbons in matching tones were woven together to make interesting squares; bands of contrasting material were appliqued in modern effects; porch pillows were made of sturdy chintz and cretonne, their edges bound in contrasting colors; fine linens were daintily embroidered to fashion baby pillows of softest down; scraps of lace and silks were used to make boudoir pillows, and jewel-colored squares of velvet and satin were trimmed with looped fringe edgings or with pipings of a contrasting material to make plain, tailored cushions. Three weeks before Christmas they were ready to display their work. They persuaded a local laundry agent to rent them his window space for the three weeks for five dollars. After the mad Christmas rush was over, they found that they had sold every pillow they had made up and had orders for about two dozen more to fill. They charged good prices, too. As a matter of fact, they discovered that people seem to appreciate handwork in direct proportion to the price. While a handsome profit was made on the Christmas sale there wasn’t enough money in the travel fund to take them both to Europe that year. So they designed, and planned, and sewed all spring and summer. The magazines were scanned for ideas, and the silk sales eagerly watched for bargains. They managed to buy a lot of kapok and down-filled pillows in muslin covers from a wholesaler at a price cheaper than they could make them. During the spring, the two girls had orders from a half dozen local families for pillows and draperies and they sold pillows steadily through the summer for porch use. One of the local gift shops gave them an order for pillows which the proprietor admitted were more attractive and better styled than any she could purchase elsewhere. Late that fall they worked busily to get enough stock ready for the Christmas sale. They figured that even if they made too many they could be sold during the next year. By the time the Christmas season arrived they had more pillows than the laundry agent’s window could hold. So a vacant store on a busy street was secured for a month and it was so attractively arranged that people came in just to look around. The majority of them, however, evidently left with pillows under their arms, because when two tired girls figured up their sales after the last mad scramble Christmas eve, they found only two pillows left, one of which had been stepped on and soiled and the other wedged behind a counter out of sight. So the Tosdale sisters saw Europe the next year and evidently it won’t be their last trip for they have decided to open up a shop. Now that they have an idea of what people want, their shop will carry pillows, curtains, quilts, padded throws for the chaise lounge, pads for dresser drawers and shelves, padded dress hangers, equipment for wardrobes and closets, etc. To have enough stock on hand, they have secured the part-time services of two women who do exquisite needlework.