40 SALMON AND TROUT. 



price, having regard to the difficulty of obtaining gut of really 

 superior quality, and the all-important part it plays in a sport 

 which, if not quite so expensive as deer stalking or grouse 

 driving, is certainly becoming rapidly a luxury that only rich 

 men can hope to enjoy. As the rent of a salmon river, to say 

 nothing of incidental expenses, may probably be reckoned at 

 seldom less than three figures, it is really the soundest economy 

 to begrudge no expense connected with the tackle, rod, &c., 

 upon which the sport obtained for all this outlay depends. 

 Moreover, as regards gut, I believe that the best, and, con- 

 sequently, the most expensive, is, in the long run, actually the 

 most economical if proper care be taken of it. A thoroughly 

 well-made casting line of carefully picked salmon gut will out- 

 last three or four made of inferior strands, and during all its 

 ' lifetime ' will be a source of satisfaction. The breaking dead 

 weight strain of a strand of the stoutest salmon gut, round, 

 smooth, and perfect in every respect, ought not to be less than 

 somewhere between fifteen and eighteen pounds. 



Why in the case of salmon gut, as in that of all other com- 

 modities, the demand does not produce the supply, it is diffi- 

 cult to see. Caterpillars ought to be easily cultivated one 

 would say. Think of the number of strands which might be 

 produced by the inhabitants of a single mulberry tree ! — 



Millions of spinning worms 

 That in their green shops weave the smooth-haired silk. 



I cannot but believe also, that by the application to gut- 

 making of the same energy and intelligence which is being 

 applied all over the world to other manufactures, a much longer 

 and generally more perfect ' staple ' might be produced. From 

 a quarter to a half of the actual gut of the silkworm appears to 

 be lost by the present process, as will be seen on examining 

 the waste ends of a hank of any sort of gut that has not been 

 picked and ' lengthed.' 



For gut of extraordinary quality and strength, as much as 

 from 5/. to 7/. per hundred strands -wholesale price — is now 



