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Show MAKING GOOD IN A SMALL TOWN Real Stories About Real Girls By MRS. HARLAND H. ALLEN -; t 1S24, Western Newspaper L'nlon.) BULB BUSINESS MEANS BETTER BANK BALANCES CHRISTMAS time and Easter time are tlie seasons supreme for bulbs. But the woman who raises them for sale can't wait till holiday time to Btart thinking of them; she must make her preparations many months In advance. ad-vance. For, as a certain small-town girl who raises them professionally declares, de-clares, "In bulb raising, preparedness Is the password." "A bulb catalog that Just happened to be on the living room desk was my Inspiration," she told me. "I had no special abilities to cash In, but I did want to do something to avoid stagnation. stag-nation. I managed to make my bulbs pay, only by use of step-by-step directions." direc-tions." This girl bulb raiser is evidence that even a novice can make good at the business. The first step the bulb-ralser-to-be should take is to try to get orders for her bulbs. In raising them for Christmas Christ-mas gifts, she should start her campaign cam-paign by newspaper advertising and personal letters curly in August. Her orders must reach her by the end of September, and she should set out no bu'bs later than that. She should send carefully-thought-out price lists to her friends and prospective buyers. buy-ers. Ail bulbs must be allowed not less than eight weeks for rooting; some of them, such as Dutch hyacinths, require re-quire twelve.- Then, most bulbs require re-quire three weeks to bloom, after coming to rbe light ; tulips require four weeks. The prospective bulb-raiser should carefully select the pots that are to hold her plants. Her small flowers, such as anemones, crocuses and snowdrops, snow-drops, look more attractive and thrive better in small earthen bulb pans, or "flats," as the professionals call them. She should take care In plant ing several in one pot, not to let one bulb touch another or the pot Itself; one Inch should be allowed between the bulbs and . the sides of the pot. They should be watered a little after planting, then put out in a trench. When the rooting time Is up, the bulb grower should dig her plants out and carry them to some place equally' dark, and slightly warmer than the trench. She should gradually increase the temperature until, when the leaves are large and green, and the buds show a little, the plants are ready for bright sunlight, and a temperature tem-perature of seventy degrees. In shipping the plants, the bulb raiser should slip them into waterproof water-proof pots, encased in corrugated paper, pa-per, and pack carefully to prevent their moving about in the box. THE "PAINLESS BRIDGE" TEACHER "pHE "trump card" for any bridge teacner Is an even temper; and her "longest suit" is science. So says a young woman who is reaping riches, in a small way, teaching teach-ing the people of her own town how to play "painless bridge." "Bridge is a scientific game." she told me one day when I dropped In at her home with a friend, who Is one of her "bridge guests" ; "and the only certain way four people who may be strangers can play harmoniously Is for each of them to observe the conventions." con-ventions." This means that the teacher must, above all, insist on scientific plays, she went on to explain, if her pupils are to hold their own outside of "Main Street." She must NOT let them "play by ear." And to accomplish accom-plish tliis end is, she admitted, often a severe trial to tongue and temper. The small-town girl who decides that she is qualified for this rather unique work, will. If successful, have a we.1! -paying business, because bridge-playing bridge-playing is a definite, and seemingly permanent social asset. The smalltown small-town woman wants to play the game with sufficient skill that she can compete com-pete successfully when she is the guest of a friend In a nearby city. The girl who selects this work will probably have played cards most of her life, and be known as a "shark." The reputation will help her business, and. it Is true that she must be an expert on the technicalities or tine points of the game. Even so, however, how-ever, she should consult the most recent re-cent books of the recognized bridge authorities, nnd she should always teach the game according to the latest rulings procurable. And then, she must know something about the psychology of teaching methods, reference refer-ence books. If she needs them, will help her here, too. These pupils will be the especially difficult ones for whom the amateur teacher must be on the look-out: the man who wants to play a gambler's game instead of a scientist's game; the woman who wants to play bridge like a game of tiddle-de-winks, with conversation about babies and cooking cook-ing thrown in: and the person of either sex who knows, as he says a "smattering" of the game, who has "just picked it up." Insistence on science, coupled with social training and diplomacy are the virtues of the teacher which will mak her students vexless and vlctorlcus bridge players. |