A Most IMPORTANT JaweLeMENT. 211 
5) 
ably greenheart, and next to it hickory ;” adding that they 
in the British Isles had tried bamboo, and found it a failure. 
He also thinks that ferruled rods are better than spliced ones 
for general use, and shows, by comparing their weights, that 
the terruled ones are not appreciably heavier. Since Mr. Fran- 
cis gave an opinion against a bamboo rod, Dr. Clerk, of the 
firm of Andrew Clerk & Co., has visited Scotland in the sal- 
mon season, and carried with him a split bamboo rod made by 
their house. I have seen the same rod used in Canada, where 
it was pronounced, by such competent judges as officers of 
the army, the best they had ever seen in use. The doctor 
stated that to be the opinion of the anglers and experts in 
Scotland. This is the fourth season that it has been used, 
and, though it has played and killed many salmon weighing 
from twenty-five to thirty-five pounds each, yet it has never 
started in any part, but appears as good as new. Taving 
seen it used by the side of Castle Connell and Martin Kelly 
specimens, I frankly confess that the split bamboo is vastly 
their superior in delivering a fly at a great distance, and re- 
trieving the line; in playing a large fish while the angler is on 
the shore of a wide, rapid river, and in all the essentials 
which conduce to elegance and satisfaction in salmon-fishing. 
The rod is twenty feet long, and not more than three fourths 
the weight of a greenheart or hickory of the same length. 
The reel is attached to bands from eighteen inches to two 
feet above the end of the butt, as easier to hold while racing 
down a river with a salmon. By the use of a couple of feet 
below the reel, the angler may place the butt under his left 
arm, and, with the rod perpendicular, let the rod and reel do 
their duty, while he runs an unequal race along a rocky shore, 
tangled with shrubbery and fallen timber. I sincerely be- 
lieve that the split bamboo is the perfection of a salmon-rod. 
Its make is a secret, but there is no doubt that the butt and 
second joint are corked with hickory or some one of our 
tough woods. The only part of the rod which is bamboo is 
the outside, composed of the outside and tough part of the 
