TREE8 OF AMERICA, 70 



and chisels, and mallets, and small tools of 

 that kind ; and it serves very well, too, for 

 the cogs or teeth of mill-wheels, and for the 

 teeth of harrows, and the wood-work of horse's 

 collars. The inner bark, I have heard, makes 

 an excellent medicine for people that have the 

 ague and fever; very nearly as good as the 

 Peruvian bark that the doctors give for that 



^3 



sickness ; and the outer bark makes ink quite 

 as good as the oak-apples." 



" Well, I declare. Uncle Philip, the dogwood, 

 though it is little, is quite useful, and I shall 

 think more of it than I used to." 



"Big things are not always the best, my 

 children, any more than big people." 



" Uncle Philip, what is the Peruvian bark, 

 that you mentioned just now ?" 



" It is the bark of a tree that grows in Peru, 

 in South America ; one of the most precious 

 trees in the world, because the bark cures the 

 ague and fever ; which no other medicine is 

 certain of doing." 



" And does it not grow in this country ?" 



" No ; it grows nowhere but in South 

 America ; but there is a tree that grows in 

 some parts of our Southern States that is very- 

 much like it, both in appearance, and in its 



