Growth was slow, but in time the book clubs emerged as a $600 million-a-year business.

The outdoor sock industry, a $224 million-a-year business, is devoted to creating alternatives for backpackers, trail-runners, cyclists and skiers alike.

Milking cows is a $318 million-a-year business, by far the state's largest farm industry.

Take Madera County in the San Joaquin Valley, where grapes are a $117 million-a-year business.

Medical breakthroughs have turned the IVF industry into a booming £500 million-a-year business.

But that was hardly the case with Schumacher, which, founded in 1889 and now a $200 million-a-year business, is still in the same family.

A virtually free-market branch of medicine, the $350 million-a-year business has been largely exempt from government regulation and from the downward pressure on costs that insurance companies exert.

Shoes drive the regional economy, but hats are a $260 million-a-year business in Italy.

By the late 1980s, DAK was a $120 million-a-year business with around 400 full-time workers.

The sports authority already has more than 3,000 full- and part-time employees operating a $200 million-a-year business.