50 



particularly so in Cyprus, so that when the trees are fully grown they will 

 be regularly thinned out, and it is expected that the timber will yield enough 

 to pay all expenses. 



I spent five days accompanied by Mr. Beven, of the Agricultural Depart- 

 ment, in travelling round the rural districts. After leaving Nicosia for* 

 Limasol, the road runs through a considerable amount of poor country 

 similar to the marl and chalk between Larnica and the capital, and then, 

 through fields of barley and afterwards plantations of olive and carob trees. 

 Both of" these latter produce valuable crops, but much of the country where 

 olives will grow is also suitable for grapes, and as the vine is the most profit- 

 able, the Cypriots do not grow enough olives to supply their own wants, 

 and a considerable amount of olive oil is imported. Some of the olive trees 

 must have attained the age of some of the famous groves in Spain, which 

 were planted by the Moors 500 years ago, for in many places the centres 

 of the original trees had decayed long ago, and at each angle a more vigorous 

 portion had formed a fresh vigorous stem, so that instead of the old tree it 

 formed a bunch of three or four trees, all covered with flowers in evidence- 

 of a good crop. In returning to the hardy habits of the olive tree, a gentle- 

 man in Constantinople told me that during the last riots in Crete, the 

 natives in many places burnt out each other's olive plantations, leaving them 

 apparently ruined, so much so that the English people made up a fund to- 

 replant the orchards, but in the following year, after good rains, the trees all 

 burst out into leaf again, and gave the most bountiful crop of olives that had 

 been seen for many years, the year's rest from cropping after the fire 

 probably being the reason for the great crop 



The Carob Bean tree (Ceratonia siliqua), which is a native of the Levant,, 

 grows wild in Cyprus, but all the best trees have been grafted. It flowers 

 in August and September, and the crop of beans is gathered in the following 

 August. It takes its popular name " caroub " or " carob " from the fancied 

 resemblance of the broad flat bean to a goat's horn. Like the olive, it grows 

 upon very poor soil without irrigation, and the cultivated trees bear a large 

 crop of broad flat beans containing from ten to eighteen flat seeds. When 

 ripe the beans have a very pleasant sweet flavour, and are used for making 

 sweetmeats ; but the bulk of the beans are sent abroad to be ground up and 

 made into cattle food. These trees grow very well in 'the dry parts o 

 Australia ; and in the time to come, when much of the arid west will be 

 planted with edible scrub plants and trees, it is to be hoped that the hand- 

 some carob tree will be among those utilised, and its crop of beans used 

 to feed our stock. In 1906 there were 44,965 tons of carob beans 

 shipped from Cyprus, valued at over 157,000. Every little corner along 

 the road where there was any soil was planted with barley, even if it were, 

 only a few yards in extent. After passing a large wattle plantation, >* hich 

 was set out to keep the drifting sand from blocking np the roads, Limasol was 

 reached the first night ; this is the chief port for carob bean and wine ship- 

 ments. The next day was spent among the mountains among the vineyards 

 which are planted in all kinds of angles, on the sides of mountains and on the> 

 edges of precipices, where one would hardly think even a goat could climb. 

 The native wine is of poor quality on account of the primitive methods 

 used in its production ; it is usually cleared with gypsum and carried own 

 the mountains in pigskins on pack saddles, arid then sold to the wine 

 merchants of Limasol, who ship the greater part to Egypt. An English 

 company is making wine at the village of Perapidha, and, under improved 

 conditions of manufacture, are sending a quantity to England and Germany. 



