HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
CYPRUS AS I SAW IT IN 1879
page 363

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whenever an arrangement for an extension of planting] shall be carried out. I have never seen any fruits oil high quality in Cyprus, but they are generally most! inferior, owing to the neglect of grafting, and theJ overcrowding of the trees. The cherries which growl in the villages from 2500 to 4500 feet above the seal are taken down to Limasol and the principal towns for! sale, but they are small and tasteless, although red and' bright in colour. They grow in large quantities, and are never attacked by birds which render the crop' precarious in England, and necessitate the expense of netting; should the best varieties be introduced, every natural advantage exists for their cultivation. The apricots are not much larger than chestnuts, and would be classed as " wild fruit, " from the extreme inferiority of size and flavour ; but there is no reason except neglect for the low quality of a delicious species of fruit that seems from the luxuriant growth of the tree to be specially adapted to the soil and climate. It is useless to enumerate the varieties o i fruits that are brought to market ; all are inferior, excepting grapes and lemons. .The productions of the garden's exhibit the miserable position of the island, which emanates from a want of elasticity in adebased and oppressed population too apathetic and hopeless to attempt improvements. England can change this wretched stagnation bw; the application of capital, and by encouraging the development of the first necessity, water; without which, all attempts at agricultural improvements, and the extension of tree-planting in the low country, would be futile. I shall therefore devote the following chapter to the subject of artificial irrigation, and it results.

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