There may be boys enough, for aught I know, who never went fishing in their lives, and so do not know what canes, or reeds, or cane-poles, as they are variously called, are like.

I must explain, therefore, that the canes which Sam proposed to burn out, were precisely such as those that are commonly used as fishing rods.

These canes grow all over the South, in the swamps.

They are, in fact, a kind of gigantic grass, although the people who are most familiar with them do not dream of the fact.

The botanists call them a grass, at any rate, and the botanists know.