12 NOTES ON AGRICULTURE IN CYPRUS 



for more reapers and also for threshing machines, of which 

 there are at present barely half a dozen in the Island. 



The Agricultural Department 



The Agricultural Department was established on a 

 small scale in 1 896, under the direction of Mr. P. Gennadius. 

 It continued much on its original lines until 1912, when its 

 establishment was enlarged, and the Government Farm 

 and the Veterinary Branch were attached to the Depart- 

 ment, and again in 1914 it underwent a further slight 

 extension which was necessarily checked by the war. 

 There is now a staff of inspectors, district overseers and 

 agricultural demonstrators who are occupied in continually 

 travelling in the country, advising and giving practical 

 assistance to cultivators, lecturing on village wine-making, 

 poultry-keeping, bee-keeping, on the action to be taken 

 against various pests and so forth. 



There are some eight Government Nursery Gardens in 

 the districts from which large numbers of trees, plants and 

 seeds are issued. A system of Model Orchards and Vine- 

 yards, newly started, is giving satisfactory results. These 

 are intended to assist those engaged in the production of 

 fruit and vegetables, for which an unlimited market is close 

 at hand in Egypt. 



Seventy School Gardens are in existence throughout 

 the Island under the guidance and control of the De- 

 partment. By their means many young fruit trees and 

 other plants and seeds are annually distributed at low 

 rates, better methods of cultivation and new kinds of 

 vegetable and fodder plants are being made known, and 

 the village boys are being taught something about the 

 work on which they will later depend for their livelihood. 



An Agricultural School for the sons of farmers was 

 opened at Nicosia in 1913 under the direction of the 

 Agricultural Department. Some twenty to twenty-five 

 lads between sixteen and twenty years of age, both Greeks 

 and Moslems, receive a two-year course of instruction 

 with a view to fitting them to cultivate their own proper- 

 ties later. A few of the more promising students have 

 been retained as student-labourers in the Department, 



