238 Fly-rods and Fly-tackle. 



perfect-fitting and good material is easily to be had), as a 

 standard from which to form a true opinion of its merits? 

 Would the reader think it fair-play should a visitor to 

 his country judge its inhabitants from the most debased 

 of the population, and declare that all were of that stripe, 

 and that the people of the United States were the scum 

 of the earth ? I think not. And, as he would justly pro- 

 test against such an expression as an outrage, so do I 

 protest against these charges, and for the same reason. 



Besides quite a number that I still retain, there are 

 many rods of my own make in use, presents to friends. 

 The ferrules of all these are short and without dowels, 

 and all made from german-silver tubing drawn inside 

 and out. None of them are furnished with any device 

 whatever, except the mere cohesion of the inner within 

 the outer ferrule, to hold them together when in use. 

 Never in twenty years and more of my own experience, 

 nor, I believe, in that of those using my rods, has a fer- 

 rule either split or bent, or a joint thrown apart. And 

 yet I am but an amateur maker, a professional man with- 

 out mechanical training, resorting to rod-making merely 

 as an amusement. It stands to reason that a trained me- 

 chanic could do better work. Besides, the ferrules used 

 by me for the last five years were drawn too large in the 

 first instance ; and in subsequently reducing the diame- 

 ter, the thickness was also reduced, resulting in a much 

 thinner ferrule that I proposed certainly not heavier than 

 an ordinary visiting-card. Therefore we have not here 

 the best possible of either work or material, as a criterion 

 of the merits of the simple ferrule. 



These rods have not been used solely against the small 

 fish of the ordinary mountain brook, but much more 

 largely in those waters of Maine where, I believe, it is 



