FROM COTTON TO STEWART. 91 



heart. Hickory, an American wood, was 

 extensively used for many purposes from the 

 seventeenth century onwards, but it is not 

 mentioned as a rod material till Snart's 

 Practical Observations on Angling in the River 

 Trent, published anonymously in 1801. It 

 became the common material for trout rods. 

 Lancewood, from the West Indies, began to be 

 used during the period. Greenheart, a native 

 of the West Indies and South America, but 

 coming chiefly from British Guiana, now so 

 universal and invaluable, was not used for rods 

 until nearly the end of the period, though its 

 fine qualities for other purposes, such as ship- 

 building, were known long before. In 1841 

 occurs the first fishing mention I know of : 

 Edward Chitty, who wrote the Fly-Fisher' s 

 Text Book under the pseudonym of Theophilus 

 South, says that Liverpool rod makers use a 

 wood imported from Essequibo River, British 

 Guiana. This wood can be none other than 

 greenheart, which comes from there. He 

 considers it a good material, but too stiff for 

 tops. A few years later Mr. George Kelson, 

 as he tells us in his Salmon Fly, made with the 

 help of a friend a greenheart trout rod, with 

 which he could cover more water than with the 

 hickory rods then in common use. In 1857 

 Stewart mentions greenheart, but only as 

 material for tops, for which he rejects it as 

 too brittle, and also because its weight strains 

 the middle joints and makes the rod too pliant. 



