THE SPLIT BAMBOO ROD 149 



" While in England I met several old an- 

 glers, some of them in the fishing clubs, who 

 all asserted that split cane rods had been made 

 in England years ago, but had not taken very 

 well and been dropped. Afterward I found 

 evidence that seemed to confirm this. Hen- 

 shall says * English origin ' in his c Book of the 

 Black Bass. 7 In England I was told that, as 

 the old chaps remembered the matter, only the 

 middle joint, and sometimes the top, were 

 glued from strips, the butt being ash or green- 

 heart, but the principle is what counts, of 

 course. The sections were three or four only, 

 so the old boys said. Of course such faraway 

 evidence is merely significant. 



" In some of the older, small shops in Lon- 

 don I saw some split cane rods that certainly 

 looked as old as the proprietors said they 

 were sixty or seventy years but this again 

 is not strictly evidence. ... At the first 

 World's Exposition in London in 1851 three 

 firms exhibited three-strip rods, and in 1855 

 Blacker was making them commonly, gener- 

 erally of three strips." 



In a later communication Dr. Breck wrote: 



"Re Mr. Coggeshall's claim, that the Eng- 

 lish were not using split and glued bamboo, 

 all one has to do is to quote from Fitzgibbon's 



