Il6 TRAXSACTIOXS OF ROVAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



land adjoining forest. Even on cornfields it is advisable to plant 

 light shade-giving trees among the crops, which ripen better for 

 some slight shade. Eucalyptus, as all Australians know, gives 

 very slight shade, in most varieties. 



Fruit trees on the plains of Cyprus are greatly advocated. 

 The commonest of these are the carob, yielding the locust bean, 

 and the olive. Part of the foresters' duties consists in grafting the 

 cultivated olive on the wild variety. And surely here Scottish 

 forestry should follow suit, especially in the Highlands, by inter- 

 spersing timber forest with the apple, plum and possibly 

 cherry, on suitable reservations. 



Hitherto the Cyprus Forest Department can claim to have 

 abolished indiscriminate cutting and damage, to have sup- 

 pressed fire raising, and to be on the road to dealing with 

 the goat, besides other work, noted later in describing the 

 actual forests. The moving sand drifts which, in some parts, were 

 encroaching on cultivated land, have been planted with wattle, 

 acacia and eucalyptus, and their movement is already arrested. 



The forests of Cyprus already demarcated cover one-fifth of 

 the island; they consist of 140,000 acres of good pine forest, 

 nearly all Aleppo pine {Piims halepensis), 111,000 acres of 

 mixed pine and scrub, and 200,000 acres of thin coast scrub with 

 a few pines. The mature timber is in the "Main" or Papho 

 forest (Mount Troodos) of 50 square miles or 32,000 acres. The 

 total area of forest is estimated at 700 square miles or 448,000 acres. 



Besides the Aleppo pine there are, in the mountains, smaller 

 quantities of Laricio pine, Cedar of Lebanon, Cypress and others. 

 On the plains grow the oak, arbutus, olive, carob, plane, alder, 

 maple, eucalyptus, pistacia, juniper and others. 



A trained surveyor is on the permanent forest staff. Forest 

 stations check fires, and have each an arboretum. The forests 

 regenerate naturally, except where the goats prevent this. It 

 is proposed to extend the forests eventually to from two-fifths 

 to a half of the whole area of the island, and it is estimated 

 that they will then ultimately yield ^467,000 annually, and 

 support 167,000 people. 



This is an immense proportion, but the area consists of 

 mountain and other land worthless for other purposes, while 

 its main justification lies in the amelioration of the climate, the 

 increase in rainfall and in subsoil moisture retention, and the 

 conservation of soil now denuded and carried away by floods. 



