67 



As all my readers may not have seen the modus operandi in this 

 modern manufacture, I give a short description of the process, 

 illustrating it with diagrams of the several parts of the steel and 

 cane which go to the manufacture of one of Messrs. Hardy's 

 celebrated split-cane rods, with and without steel centre. The 

 steel centre itself, of which Messrs. Hardy claim the authorship 

 (if not also the monopoly), is again amongst fishers often a bone 

 of amicable contention, and fierce, though friendly, are the dis- 

 putations of the rival partizans. . . . 



But to my diagrams. This is a section of bamboo cane, and 

 the V-shaped part, marked A, represents that portion of the cane 



SECTION I. 



which only is used by the rod-maker the outside, or dotted V, 

 showing the size of the strip when first roughly cut out, and the 

 inner line its size when planed down and ready for fitting. These 

 strips, taking nearly the form of an equallateral triangle, are, it 

 will be observed, so cut as to utilize to the utmost the outer part 

 of the cane, which is the hardest and strongest, the inside being 

 little better than pulp. 



SECTION 2. 



