461 
October, 1922 
fine polish. Greenheart is a somewhat 
lighter and coarser grained wood and 
many prefer it to bethabara. 
Lancewood was, not so long ago, the 
chief rod wood and is really excellent 
rod-making material. A hand-made rod 
of gennine lancewood is a mighty good 
implement, though not considered by the 
majority of anglers as good as green- 
heart. This wood, as well as greenheart, 
has many imitations ; many of the so- 
called lancewood rods purchased are not 
made of lancewood at all. The real stuff 
is of Cuban growth, but, like the Cal- 
cutta bamboo, is not now available to 
any great extent. 
Degama looks something like lance- 
wood and is often sold as lancewood, to 
which, however, it is greatly inferior. 
Many of the cheaper rods are construct- 
ed of this material. Rods of a fair qual- 
ity may be constructed of hickory too, 
but this wood has a tendency to set even 
more quickly than lancewood and once 
bent is very hard to straighten perma- 
nently. Hickory makes an excellent butt 
and is extensively used for that purpose. 
Butts for surf rods (Fig. 4) were 
originally about the same as those used 
for boat rods, cane wound for the most 
part and perhaps a bit longer. Then 
they were lengthened to about twenty- 
eight to thirty-three inches long and 
such butts are called “spring butts,” that 
is, they are shaved down between hand 
grasps, so as to obtain a spring in the 
butt that is supposed to assist in the cast. 
A change has been made, however, in 
the butts used at the casting fields. The 
distance betw’een hand grasps has been 
shortened somewhat and the diameter of 
the butt has been increased so that it is 
stiff and unyielding and therefore the 
only spring is in the tip ; this stiff un- 
yielding butt is called the “club butt,” 
and the long-distance casters use it ex- 
clusively, or most of them do. A still 
later change has been to the type called 
the “extension butt,” that is, the butt has 
been lengthened above the reel position ; 
the reel seat is merely a German silver 
plate screwed to the butt and not a solid 
ferrule, the reel being held on by an 
adjustable band. In this way one may 
derive the benefit of the length of a six- 
foot-six or over tip, although the tip 
itself may be only six feet long. 
The “Dry Ground Bugs” advise us 
that this change has added considerably 
to the distance of the cast. Straight- 
grained hickory is possibly as good ma- 
terial as any for a butt, but one may 
suit his own taste in that direction pro- 
vided the wood is tough and strong. I 
have seen some beautiful butts made of 
woods such as purpleheart, ebony, 
niobwood, snakewood and other South 
American or African woods that take a 
wonderful polish and show lovely de- 
signs in the grain. Butts constructed of 
cheap materials should be avoided ; ash, 
for example— it may hold up but I know 
of cases where it has splintered and 
caused ugly cuts. 
E seem to have been sort of hide- 
bound in the direction Mf hand 
grasps. Why have we in the past had 
- ' (Cdntinued on page 475) 
ll'fr?' 
C AREFUL men agree on 
the necessity of owning a 
thoroughly dependable revolver 
for protection in emergency. 
Smith & Wesson SUPERIOR 
Revolvers have been the choice 
of this type of men for more 
than a half a century . 
Smith (^Wesson 
<ij)(ianujacturers of Superior "Revolvers 
SPRINGFIELD 
MASSACHUSETTS 
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