THE AMERICAN TROUT. 21 
well, but in these benighted days, while wrists are made 
of bone, muscles, cartilages and the like, the lighter the 
better. A rod, and if perfection is absolutely indispens- 
able, a cedar rod of eleven or twelve feet, weighing nine 
or ten ounces, will catch trout. Cedar rods can only be 
obtained in America, and then only on compulsion, but 
this wood makes the most elastic rods in the world. They 
spring instantly to every motion of the hand, and never 
warp. They are delicate ; the wood is, like woman, cross- 
grained, but invaluable if carefully treated. The reel 
should be a simple click, never a multiplier, but large 
barrelled, and fastened to the but with a leather strap. 
The line, silk covered with a preparation of oil, tapered 
if possible at each end, and thirty to forty yards long. 
The basket, positive, a fish-basket ; the angler, compara- 
tive, a fisher-man. 
Thus equipped, go forth mildly approving where the 
writer's opinions coincide with yours, simply incredulous 
where they do not. Ere you begin, however, you may 
wish to know the size of the fish you can catch, a matter 
of no little intricacy, for though we all know the size of 
the fish we have ourselves caught, there is always some 
one else that has caught larger. My largest trout, at 
the time this is written, was taken on the Marshpee 
River, on Cape Cod, and weighed three pounds and 
fourteen ounces. But it is said there were inland 
brook trout exhibited at the J^ew York Club by a mem- 
ber in the year 1857, the two largest of which weighed 
cleaned six pounds and a half each. "I have my 
doubts." These fish should have weighed, when first 
taken, nearly eight pounds, double the size of any trout, 
