40 MODERN PRACTICAL ANGLER. 



That in none was there more room for improvement 

 may be gathered from the recipe for the construction 

 of a trolling rod given by Juliana Berners in the brown 

 old " Boke of St. Alban's," published about i486, 

 wherein the implement is recommended to be of at 

 least some 14 feet long ; the " staffe," or butt, measuring 

 a " fadoom (fathom) and a half," of the thickness of 

 an " arm-grete," or about as tJiick as a man's arm ; 

 and the joints being bound with long "hopis of yren" 

 (iron hoops). 



There are eight woods more or less universally em- 

 ployed by rod manufacturers ; four of which grow solid, 

 viz., hickory, greenhart, ash and willow ; and four 

 hollow — East India bamboo, Carolina or West India 

 cane. White cane, and Jungle cane. 



Of the "solids" the most valuable, until greenhart 

 came so much into fashion, was hickory. This wood 

 grows in Canada, and is sent over in what are called in 

 the tackle trade "billets," that is, longitudinal sections 

 of a log ; each log being sawn from end to end through 

 the middle twice or three times, so as to cut it up into 

 4 or 6 bars V shaped — having three sides. On their 

 arrival in England the billets are transferred to the saw 

 mills, where they are again cut up into planks ; and these 

 planks are then put carefully away in a warm dry place 

 and left for a year or two to season before being touched. 

 After seasoning they are re-cut roughly into joints, 

 sorted, and put away again for three years more, — some- 



