128 CONVERSATIONS ON THE 



very good whips for idlers, and truants, and 

 mischievous children ; but I hope you are 

 too good ever to have them applied to you." 



" Uncle Philip, I have sometimes found in 

 the woods just such little things as grow on 

 the birch-trees, about as long as my little 

 finger and as big round as a quill, hanging 

 from the ends of the branches of a very small 

 tree, not so high as a peach-tree ; but I do 

 not think it was a birch, for the leaves were a 

 great deal larger." 



" I suppose it was the alder ; one of the 

 smallest trees that grow in this country 

 There are two sorts, the common alder and 

 the black ; but the black alder is scarcely ever 

 found except in Massachusetts and Vermont, 

 and even there it is not at all common. The 

 other kind grows all over the United States. 

 The black alder is sometimes found as many 

 as eighteen or twenty feet high, and three 

 inches thick. The bark is the only part that 

 is made use of; it makes a black die, that 

 is used by hatters. There is an alder 

 that grows in Europe which is much larger ; 

 sometimes fifty feet high, and the wood is a 

 great deal used : but this kind has never been 

 found in the United States. It will probably 



