This is a story about a farmer from Florida who inherited a piece of land that was extremely infertile. I read it some time ago in a book by Dale Carnegie and remembered it because it touches on one of my favorite themes\u2014the transformation of lead into gold, which he calls \u201chow to turn lemons into lemonade.\u201d<\/p>\n
So,<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing could be grown on the land\u2014neither fruit nor pigs could be raised. The only things that thrived there were centuries-old oak trees and rattlesnakes.<\/em><\/p>\n
But eventually inspiration struck him. \u2018What if we turn the negatives into positives?\u2019 Why not profit from the rattlesnakes?<\/em><\/p>\n
To everyone\u2019s amazement, he began canning rattlesnake meat. Each year the farm was visited by 20,000 people. His enterprise flourished. The venom extracted from the snakes\u2019 fangs was sent to laboratories and used to produce antitoxin serum. The snakes\u2019 skins were sold for fabulous sums and made into women\u2019s shoes and handbags\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n
I saw the canned rattlesnake meat being shipped to customers all over the world. I bought a postcard with a view of the farm and mailed it from the local post office in the village, which had been renamed Rattlesnake in honor of the man who had turned a poisonous lemon into sweet lemonade.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n