42 MODERN PRACTICAL ANGLER. 
time elastic to admit of being used in such small bulk 
in a single piece. Thus in light trouting rods it will 
very often be found in slips a yard long and tapering off 
at the end to a substance little thicker than that ofa 
stout darning needle, whilst a 7-foot joint averaging about 
the circumference of a swan-quill, is the very common 
“lash” of a Castle Connell. 
In consequence of its great weight, greenhart is only 
used for butts when they are very slender or tapered 
rapidly off from the handle, as in the rods turned out by 
the Irish tackle makers. 
Joints of this wood are hardly ever perfectly straight 
when fresh cut. They are bent or “warped” straight 
by hand pressure over a charcoal fire, and when cool 
retain, at any rate for a long time, their symmetrical 
shape, much as does the originally straight walking-stick 
handle its crooked one after a somewhat similar process, 
—though I believe in this latter case the softening 
medium is water and not fire. Notwithstanding this 
“ductility” of some, indeed most, woods, there can be 
no doubt that the straighter a joint comes ori- 
ginally from the steel of the sawyer, the straighter will 
it remain in the hands of the fisherman. A joint 
that comes out straight from its seasoning hardly ever 
becomes permanently crooked afterwards, and fer 
contra, one which is radically warped at the end of 
this process will as seldom be made really straight, or 
remain so for any length of time, however it may 
