Strong one-year-old plants are the best to set out, and two- or three-year-old canes yield the best and largest quantity of fruit. All wood older than that should be carefully pruned. The same cultivation applies to both—well-rotted stable manure and shallow spring tillage. The worst pest is the currant worm, which eats the leaves almost as soon as they unfold. Dust the bushes with powdered hellebore when the leaves are wet, or mix the hellebore with water and apply. Then there is the leaf blight, which attacks the leaves as soon as the fruit is ripe, and almost strips the bushes of foliage. This should be sprayed with Bordeaux mixture to stop its ravages, because if allowed to progress it weakens the bush, and the fruit next year will be small and of poor quality. The grape-trellis is a common sight in the gardens of the New England and Middle States, but not so common as it will be when the gardener understands how comparatively easy it is to grow this fruit. A well drained, thin soil, with a warm southern exposure will provide for starting a good grape-vine. The vine needs a trellis support always, and the pruning must be looked after, else the numerous runners will draw from the plant so that it cannot fruit properly. Keep the runners pinched off during the fruiting season, and in the fall cut off the old canes, leaving only the new, vigorous canes for next season. It may be two or even three or four years before much pruning is needed, but after that it must be attended to regularly. Each new cane must have plenty of space, light and air, to prevent rot and mildew of the fruit, so that the number of canes you can allow to grow, depends upon the strength of the vine, the space to be covered and the root growth. You may fancy other small fruits that you have room for in your garden. Any good agricultural paper will give you the information or name the book you need. Fruits are another means of making your plot pay, so you might as well grow a few at least. CHAPTER XXXI. THE POULTRY RUN. Even the hen is intensively cultivated these days, and that makes room for her and her chicks on the small patch. It is perfectly amazing how little the ordinary farmer knows about poultry, although he has raised some, more or less, from time immemorial. The modern farmer is too wise to be caught with the extravagant stories found in some poultry papers, of the profits to be made from a hennery, though at the same time he is not wise enough to believe that with careful attention and improved methods, the hennery can be made to pay well. It is for the benefit of the farmer who is neither too wise nor too ignorant to be taught, as well as for the villager and the intensive farmer, that this chapter is written.[11]