FROM COTTON TO STEWART. 93 



Farlow, exhibited rods of this description in 

 the Royal Exhibition of 1851, and Little was 

 at the same time making salmon rods whose 

 middle and top joints were of three-sectioned 

 bamboo. Stewart, also, mentions the two or 

 three-sectioned trout rod, but rejects it as too 

 expensive, though he likes a split cane top with 

 a whole cane butt and middle joint. Francis 

 had a triangular split cane rod made by Aldred, 

 a beautiful piece of workmanship, but top 

 heavy and tiring to the arm and lacking in free 

 spring. 



The three or four-section split cane was, 

 unlike the six-section one, an English inven- 

 tion. I think its originator was almost 

 certainly Higginbotham, who in the early 

 nineteenth century carried on business at 91 

 Strand, London. Two pieces of evidence point 

 in this direction and, though neither of them 

 is conclusive, together they make a strong case. 

 Snart, the first to mention split cane, particu- 

 larly praises the workmanship of London rods, 

 and, on the page before he mentions split cane, 

 specially recommends Higginbotham. And 

 Wright, author of Fishes and Fishing, pub- 

 lished in 1858, gives a circumstantial account 

 of getting Clark 'the unrivalled maker of 

 glued-up cane fly-rods' to make him one in 

 the year 1805. Clark was Higginbotham' s 

 successor at 91 Strand : and these two facts 

 taken together afford fairly conclusive proof. 

 At any rate I know of no earlier maker. Green- 



