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Basket making is one of these simple, easily-learned, easily-operated and profitable occupations, so well adapted to women, that it is a wonder more of them do not engage in it.

The country women at Aitken, S. C., make thousands of pretty and useful baskets from pine needles, and sell them at good prices.

A lady who was visiting there learned the art of making these baskets, and later her sister moved out west, where she learned how the Indians made the baskets for which they are so famous. Some of the materials used, including certain kinds of grasses, she sent back to her sister at home, and these were made into baskets of various pretty patterns, which sold readily, at good prices, to florists and others. In fact, her basket-making business grew into such proportions that she was obliged to employ a number of girls to assist her in turning them out as fast as they could be sold.

The beauty of it is that her expenses are next to nothing, as her home is her factory, the material is not expensive, no advertising or printing of literature is necessary, and the proceeds of the output, aside from the wages of the girls, are practically all profit.

As this lady lives in a city, she also derives a very neat income from teaching the basket-making art to other women, and these in turn, make a good living from their work, without glutting the market, for as long as florists have calls for flowers, they need these pretty baskets to put them in—and that means an additional profit on the flowers.