This Italian would collect the bright-colored pictures that adorned the labels of fruit and vegetable cans.

He would paste these pictures into a scrap-book and sell it to a mother as a picture-book for her children.

Edward saw that the Italian's idea smacked of originality and he asked the man where he got his pictures.
"From the cans I find on lots and in ash-barrels," was the reply.
"If you had more pictures, you could make more books and so earn more money, couldn't you ?" asked Edward, as an idea struck him.
"Yes," answered the Italian.
"How much will you give me if I bring you a hundred pictures ?" asked Edward.
"A cent apiece," said the Italian.
"All right," agreed Edward.
The boy went to work at once, and in three days he had collected the first hundred pictures, gave them to the Italian, and received his first dollar.
"Now," said Edward, as he had visions of larger returns from his efforts, "your books have pictures of only four or five kinds, like apples, pears, tomatoes, and green peas.

How much will you give me for pictures of special fruit which you haven't got, like apricots, green-gages, and pineapples ?" "Two cents each," replied the Italian.
"No," bargained Edward.

"They're much harder to find than the others.
I'll get you some for three cents each." "All right," said the vender, realizing that the boy was stating the case correctly.
Edward had calculated that if he would search the vacant lots in back of the homes of the well-to-do, where the servants followed the tidy habit of throwing cans and refuse over the back fences, he would find an assortment of canned-fruit labels different from those used by persons of moderate means.