time required to bake 100,000 bricks from fourteen to four days, and the
amount of fuel from forty cords of wood to sixteen. The following
suggestions by a brick-burner will show the path of fortune to those who
can reduce the time still further. Mix a little charcoal in the clay.
Double the length of the brick. If by either of these ways you can make
the bricks a trifle cheaper, while retaining their qualities, you have
acquired a fortune. “Lucky” Baldwin, a man afterward famous for his
mining and real estate speculations, made his first large money in
brick-burning. “I had no experience whatever then,” he said, “but I
studied up the subject, thoroughly mastered the details, and cleared
$1,500 in a month.”