TACKLE 227 



After every season of hard work and exposure 

 a split cane rod should be sent to its maker 

 to be re-varnished, and the one or two split 

 cane tops, which in the course of years I have 

 thought it safer to lay aside, have failed owing 

 to my having too often in the press of other 

 things neglected this precaution. As there seems 

 to be some controversy about the respective 

 merits of greenheart and split cane, it may 

 be worth while to add, that besides the ten 

 foot six rod mentioned above, I have had two 

 others of the same size built for my own use. 

 The first of these did its work thoroughly, 

 kept its straightness in spite of hard work, 

 and lasted till I lent it to a friend, who rode 

 with it on a bicycle along an open moor- 

 land road. Unfortunately, on the way he and 

 the bicycle, with the rod tied across the handles, 

 fell headlong down a grass slope, and the rod's 

 life came to an end. I am sure that a two-piece 

 greenheart rod would not have survived the fall 

 either. The second was built to take the place 

 of this broken split cane rod. It has done 

 two seasons' fair work without a sign of weak- 

 ness anywhere, and remains perfectly straight. 



