THE TOP JOISTS OF FLY-RODS. 275 



find, but as to the top joint, I think the common 

 plan of five or six separate pieces, spliced toge- 

 ther, very bad; indeed nothing can be worse, and 

 of this I can speak to a certainty, for, as every 

 splice is glued together, and then wrapped over 

 with silk, the first fish you play, or the first tree 

 or bush you get foul of, strains your splice, and 

 then crack goes your varnish, and your stupidly 

 over-fine wrapping silk, which becomes com- 

 pletely rotten in two months after the rod is 

 made. The consequence of this many-spliced 

 top, so weakly glued and tied with varnished 

 silk, is that you have a rickety, treacherous joint, 

 scarcely strong enough to strike your fish, and 

 far less so to play and kill him. Now I will tell 

 you in a very few words what a fly-top should be. 

 It should be made of one entire bit of well- 

 seasoned lance wood, with two or three inches of 

 ivory at the extreme point, finished off with a 

 small brass ferrule, over which the reel-line will 

 run and glide freely from injury. The upper part 

 of the lower ferrule of the top joint should be 

 vandyked and whipped strongly with silk, and as 

 this is the most valuable and weakest part of the 

 whole rod, let there be half-a-dozen turns of silk 

 wrapping round the wood at the centre between 

 each ring. This will give much additional 

 strength to the rod, as well as much more action, 

 as it shortens the leverage, and stops any incli- 



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