1950 
and fine plants have teen secured. The plants grow rapidly when once 
started. 
In the South American countries where this Ilex is cultivated it 
is planted in orchard form. It makes a small, bushy, evergreen tree 
with alternate leaves resembling the hollies of the North. The plant 
is tender, too much so in fact for any hut sheltered and practically 
frostless spots. For this reason there would seem to be no place for 
its commercial exploitation in the continental United States. 
The plant will be of interest to amateurs and plant lovers who 
can give it proper care and protection. In Paraguay, Uruguay and Ar- 
gentina it thrives best on moist, cool mountain slopes where the heat 
is not excessive and frost does not occur. 
There is considerable mystery surrounding the preparation of mate 
for market. In this connection it is interesting to note that George 
F. Mitchell, of the Bureau of Chemistry of this Department, has perfected 
a method for the harvesting, curing and preparing for market of an 
American plant known as cassina or Ilex vomitoria. This product appears to 
be fully equal to imported mate in cup quality and caffein content. 
According to Mr. Mitchell cassina grows naturally and luxuriantly on 
poor sandy soils over an area of 40,000 square miles extending from the 
James River, Va., along" the coast of all the Southern and Gulf States 
to the Rio Grande River in Texas. So it would seem that we have an 
abundant source of mate in our own native Ilex, much hardier than the 
South American species and more amenable in certain ways to modern manu- 
facturing processes. 
?■ In the summer of 1923 we sent Mr. Mitchell twelve plants of 1. 
paraguariensis for the purpose of determining: (1) Whether the leaves 
could be removed, cured and treated by the methods worked out for 
cassina; (2) whether caffein was present in the plant grown by us. The 
caffein content was found to be about the same as found in the South 
American product. Mr. Mitchell's conclusions on the other points were 
given us in a memorandum as follows: 
"I have subjected the /. paraguariensis plants (No. 55489) to the same 
methods that I have used for curing cassina and find that the material 
I secured from them behaves exactly like cassina; that is, that all the 
leaves can be removed from the branches with 'live steam' and that 
the fermented product can be made either by rolling the leaves and oxi- 
dizing them, as in the case of tea, or by steaming off the leaves and 
inoculating them with enzymes in the tea rolling machine. Since these 
plants behave exactly like cassina, we will be able to include /. 
paraguariensis as well as I. vomitoria in our public service patents." 
The patents referred to by Mr. Mitchell are taken out in the name 
of the Government and are for the purpose of preventing private monopo- 
lization of the methods and practices. 
B. T. Galloway. 
