Jtods and Rod Material. 



119 



maker, and from one who has a reputation to sustain. 

 You will probably have to pay a dollar or two more, but 

 you will get your money's worth. This remark holds 

 good, and cannot be too strongly emphasized in regard 

 to all fishing-tackle. 



These bluish stains so frequently seen in lancewood 

 seem not to be inherent in the tree, but to be due to 

 faulty treatment in seasoning. They arise from storing 

 the logs in a close, damp locality, and indicate inferior 

 elasticity and strength. 



CEDAR. 

 Specific gravity, 0.6396. 



We will next consider cedar as a material. 



Such cedar as is used in lead-pencils is worthless for 

 our purpose. The rod-cedar is darker in color, harder, 

 heavier, stronger, and much stiffer. I have never been 

 able to find it at the wood-dealers in the vicinity of New 

 York, and am inclined to believe that if it is used at all 

 in the arts, it is so but sparingly. 



Certainly a rod well proportioned from one of those 

 old logs which have lain buried for centuries, possibly, 

 in the morasses of Florida, for lightness and promptness 

 of action cannot be excelled. Strain it as you will short 

 of the breaking point, it will take no set, nor will any 

 change in its feel show that its powers have been over- 

 taxed. But it is the weakest of all material used for 

 that purpose, and only fit for a dilettante angler who 

 fishes open water where there is no danger of a foul on 

 his back cast, and who is ever on his guard to give the 

 fish no opportunity to strike his fly when the rod is ap- 

 proaching the perpendicular. For a rod of this wood 

 the ferrules should be considerably larger than for the 

 preceding. 



