152 Wet- Fly Fishing 



permitted to be used, in the manufacture of 

 any rod bearing the name of a first-class 

 maker. 



Contrast this with the habit of the man 

 who has got " to push a trade " by under- 

 selling his brother in the same line of 

 business* Here it would not pay to pick 

 the half-seasoned wood out of which cheap 

 rods are so often fashioned. Knots and 

 other defects are winked at, a good coat 

 of varnish covers up everything, and who 

 is the wiser ? Cheap joints are equally open 

 to criticism, perhaps even more so. 



But I think I have said quite enough, to 

 prove that a cheap rod is, more or less, a 

 mere lottery. The man to employ, is he 

 who charges a fair, honest, and remunera- 

 tive price, and who is like the builder I 

 have read of somewhere, " who put his 

 conscience into every stone that he laid." 



I have never regretted dealing with a 

 firm which carries these principles into 

 practice. Cane-built, otherwise split-cane 

 rods, I have a limited knowledge of. I 

 am able to say, however, that unless they 

 are made with the greatest nicety and care, 

 and the pieces fitted together with scientific 

 exactness, and then glued together skilfully, 

 they are nothing short of miserable frauds, 



