2, 1902.J THE TROPICAL AGRlCtJLTDRIST. h§ 
the tea now shipped about l-3rcl is now wjiat 
it professes to be -pure tmcoloiired Japan teas. 
I make a quotation from your columns : 
— "India has just been advised that a proper 
green tea should be made thoue, and nob a 
tea such as Ceylon makes, which is neither 
'fish, flesh or good red lierring."' This, no 
doniit, refers to your Calcutta telegram of 
the 4th in which Ceylon is stated to be pro- 
ducing a "namuna" tea; in this your corre- 
spondent erred. No "nanuina" tea has been 
made here, This is a black tea, with an out- 
turn somewhat similar to an oolong un- 
scented, and a tea of this description, might 
be made, so Mr. Foley says, and pushed in 
Persia, to replace a similarly made tea, ob- 
tained from Java. 
Is the Ceylon green neither fish, fiesh nor 
good red herring? Possibly not; but this 
type is being made in India, it is finding a 
good sale in Russia, was approved of in Cal- 
cutta when tasted by the Afghan envoy 
and suite, obtained highest recognition at 
the Chicago Exhibition in 189.3, and has 
met with satisfactory success in Canada. 
'Japan greens' is a misnomer, they are known 
in the American market as "J.vpans," and 
are many-hued, black, brown and various 
shades of green, grey, blue, &c, Ceylon 
greens, although uncoloured, are green and 
become greener the more they are handled. 
I see that the Anglo-American Direct Tea 
Trading Company is stated to do already 
the largest Indian and Ceylon business in 
America, and I wish them success in their 
new venture ; but surely nothing should be 
done at this moment to check the output of 
the present article, which appears to he 
steadily making its way, if the price paid 
is any criterion. Low. country green selling 
at the ix'esent moment at 34 cents and 35 
cents average or two or three cents higher 
than they would get for their leaf made into 
black tea. I think the future outlook for 
our greens promising, 'ihey are being taken in 
Russia and other countries beside America, 
and we know that the supply from Japan 
is steadily falling off, and likely ti con- 
tinue J labour there is going up in price, and 
already costs over a shilling a day, or more 
than double ours. Their tea has also been 
fiiUing off in quality as well as quantity, — 
I am, truly yours, 
A FRIEND OP ALL GREEN TEA. 
No. II:-GREEN TEAS-AND GREEN TEAS. 
Stagbrook Group, Peerniaad, 
Travancore, S. Intlia. 
13th April, 1902. 
Sir,— Being, of course, greatly interested in 
Green Tea manufacture, I have read your recent 
editorials on tlie subject witli interest. Tliat Mr. 
Ga't's experiments in " finishing off" (rather 
than nianufacturitig) Ceylon-made greens are so 
successful, from Mes-srs. Forhes and Walker's point 
of view, is certainly eneournging ; but a broker is 
not necessarily a buyer. 1 hail only recently 
before me snmples of Green tea made, I believe, 
by a Cliinanian in a K nigra Valley c;aulen, and 
tfiou^li the prices obtained made one's mouth 
water, viz., KI — 2 as ; 12 aninas and 10 annas 
}.er pound, it appareatly did not pay, as the 
manager wrote to me with a view to adopting 
what I may call my "Ceylon system." The 
extra cost of pansiing and coloring made teas 
mu-it; be considerable from niy observation of tlie 
process in Japan; and it is more than doubtful 
at present if a compel. sating bi>;her rate will be 
given lor appearance by our American buyerti. 
As Mr. Gait is aware some of the liigliest-priced 
Japan teas are " uncolored " basket lired, and also 
the coloring is only resorted to by foreign 
buyers after the teas have i cached the Treaty 
Ports. The finest teas are those made up into 
very thin squills wliicb, tlioush feasible witii 
"China'' leaf, would not be feasible with our 
liir}<e iudig3nous or Hybrid teas unless the bud 
and first leaf were plucked separately, a process 
entailing nuich extra cost. 
I venture to express the opinion that (while 
it is very desirable to take greater care to 
obtain a good twist and appearance than is fre- 
quently the case), carefully made Ceylons, such 
as some samples of De^alakande estate, which I 
had sent mo by Mr Larkin from Toronto, are 
good enough in appearance for any market ; and 
will push their own way on their intrinsic merit 
without any artificial aid from " coloring matter" 
— some teas answering to this description I sold in 
bond in New York at 22 dollar cents last year. Do 
I understand you to say that the teas Messrs 
Forbes and Walker refer to are manufactureil in 
Colombo or are they manufactured upcountjy 
and then manipulated in Colombo? I have great 
hopes that the machine I am about to place on 
the market wril make the matter of " twist " 
and appearance a very nuicli simpler one than 
at present; bus meanwhile it will be interesting to 
know the average cos!, of production on the 
'■Ceylon" system after adding on the Colombo 
factory charges, and to also get; some idea of the 
trifiir.g extra capital required to enable one to 
copy Mr Gait's (or rather the Japanese) system 
of panning and coloring as done in Colombo, with- 
out which we are apparently to be shut out of tne 
Amer'cui maiket. I fear niuch that a "dig" 
at the Ceylon Conuiiissioner had more to do with 
the articles under comment than a sincere 
opinion that Ceylon ai:d India should make the 
retrograde movement of " coining " their teas.— 
Yours faithfully, H D DEANE. 
It must be temeiiibered Ceylon made 
Green Teas took a first award at the Chicago 
Exhibition without the aid of coloring matter, and I 
may add that Messrs Frame, AKston and Arbuth- 
nor, of 21, Mincing Lane, and 132, Frotit Street, 
New York, writing :ne on 20fch March last say 
they have just heard from their Toronto friends 
who had ju-t inspected my samoles, sent to 
Messrs P Larkin Co., the Indian Tea Associa- 
tion, Calcutta, and the Planters' Association of 
Ceylon, "and consider the quality and manufacture 
to be both first class." 
THE NEEM OR MARGOSA TREE : NO I. 
Jaffna, April 22. 
Dear Sir,— As the information given in 
your valu.ible paper concerning the neem 
tree was interesting to some of your readers, 
I beg to add the following remarks. The 
tree is indigenous to Jaffna and the northern 
forests, and is extremely common here. It 
is known in Tamil by the name of vembu 
or veppamaram. Its nses are numerous and 
