lo Sept., 1908.] Insect Pes.ts in Foreign Lands. 539 



vigorous looking as tlie vounger trees. However, as most of the land 

 suitable for olives will grow vines, they do not grow enough olives for 

 local consumption, and some olive oil is imported. 



We arrived at Limasol late in the evening, and called upon the Dis- 

 trict Commissioner who had arranged to send us mules to Plateris to take 

 us over the mountains. On Monday morning we started up through the 

 foot hills covered with vines — for the natives, plant their vineyards up to 

 the very top of the mountains, on slopes so steep that it is \\onderful how 

 (hey can gather them. All day long we met caravans of muleteers with 

 their animals carrying a pigskin of wine on either side of the pack saddle. 

 As they treat most of their wine with gypsum, and often paint the pig- 

 skins on which they carry it to market, with a coat oi tar, some of the 

 native made wine has a somewhat strong flavour, but there is an English 

 Company which has taken up the wune-making industry and the export 

 of an improved quality has resulted. In 1906 there was an export of 

 36,281 gallons of Commandaria, worth ^1,993, and 878.059 gallons of 

 other kinds of wines worth ^^20,487. The greater part of this wine 

 goes to Egypt, though the Company makes shipments to England, and 

 Germany. We stopped at the village of Perapidha, where next morning 

 some of the Greek villagers brought me specimens of a small moth grub 

 that was eating off the buds of the vines. Odium is very bad on these 

 high lands, and the Government imports large quantities of sulphur and 

 distributes it at a very low rate, or free, to the vine groAvers, but thev are 

 only just beginning to take the matter up. Later on I found a very 

 curious leaf gall upon the vines which at first sight appeared exactly like 

 leaf galls of phylloxera, but on closer examination appears to be caused 

 by a leaf mite. Cyprus is one of the few vine growing places in the 

 world where phylloxera has not been discovered, and since the British 

 Occupation, no plants of any kind can be imported from countries where 

 that disease is known to exist. 



On the Tuesday night we camped in the Summer Government House on 

 the top of Mt. Troodes (6,000 feet above sea level), occupied bv the Com- 

 missioner and his staff later on in the season. Next morning by winding 

 side tracks we rounded Mt. Olympus still covered with snow, and turned 

 down the great Athalassa valley. The first village we stopped at, 

 Prodromus, is the highest up the mountains on the island, and confines its 

 attention to growing apples. Here, as everywhere else, we found the trees 

 covered with the nets of a small " web worm," a Lepidopterous larva that 

 does a great deal of damage. There is another one in the pine forests 

 that often strips the young pine trees of their needles and covers them 

 with masses of its nets. There was also a large borer in the branches 

 of the apple trees, but the owner said they were only found on the hill- 

 sides. At mid-dav we came into the village of Pedoulous, also perched 

 on the mountain side. It has very rich black soil, devoted to cherry and 

 mulberry trees, but as in the upper village, though they were all irrigated 

 from the river coming down the valley, there was no attempt to prune or 

 cut any dead wood, and many of the cherrv trees were an immense 

 size. 



From here, downwards, we passed through many small villages built 

 along the cliffs, our path sometimes winding over the flat earthen roofs of 

 the lower houses. At dark we had reached the bottom of the valley, 

 and at eight o'clock entered the Turkish tow^n of Lefka where all the 

 oranges on this side of the island are grown. Here we stopped at the 

 Police Station, as there was no hotel or Rest House in the town. Next 



