You may breed worms in abundance by the aid of decayed vegetables and leaves, mixed with marl or any kind of soil; the Brandling or Red Worm are found in Pig's and other dung, also in Tanner's bark.
SALMON ROE.
Salmon Roe is such a destructive bait for nearly all kinds of fish, and Trout in particular, that I know nothing comparable to it. It is moreover a bait requiring but little skill in the use of it. After a flood, and before the water clears, is the best time for fishing with Roe. Log, or still water having a gravelly, or sandy bottom, is the place to be selected, and you may use three or four stiff rods, placed at convenient distances from each other. You can also have floats if you like, by doing so you will immediately perceive when you have a bite. It is a good plan previous to casting in your lines, to sound the depth of the water, which you may do easily enough with a string leaded for the purpose; because, it is of material consequence that your Roe should lie at, or very near the bottom of the water. A hook about the size of a Limerick May fly hook, is quite large enough to put your roe on, which should be in regard to size about that of a French Bean or marrow fat Pea.
Salmon Roe is cured and preserved by spreading it upon thin layers of cotton wool, pack the layers on each other and cover them tightly up, so as to exclude air; glazed jars covered with bladder over the tops of them are the best to keep your Roe in. When you want to use it, mix the Roe with a little wheaten flour and gum water, to cause adhesion to the hook. In concluding this notice of Roe, I cannot refrain from expressing a hope that gentlemen will abstain from the use of it. By the purchase of Roe they hold out a premium to Salmon poachers who annually destroy immense numbers of spawning fish solely for the sake of the Roe, the high price which it commands encourages them in their illegal pursuits. If there were no buyers of Roe there would soon be a visible increase of Salmon.
DYING FEATHERS FOR FLY MAKING.
For dying feathers use clear soft water; to strike the colour add to each pint of water a piece of alum about the size of a walnut; to dye white feathers yellow, boil them in onion peelings or saffron. Blue feathers by being boiled as above become a fine olive colour. To dye white feathers blue, boil them in Indigo, by mixing the blue and yellow together, and boiling feathers in the mixed liquid, they become green. Logwood dyes lilac, or pink; to turn red hackles brown, boil them in copperas. To stain hair or gut for a dun colour, boil walnut leaves and a small quantity of soot in a quart of water for half an hour, steep the gut till it turns the colour you require. To stain gut or hair blue, warm some ink, in which steep for a few minutes, then wash in clean water immediately; by steeping hair or gut in the union dye, it will turn a yellowish green, and in gin and ink it becomes a curious water colour.
TO MAKE STRONG WHITE WAX.