Some persons have attributed the cause of unhealthiness to the existence
of the trenches made by the Turks during the siege in 1571, which are
considered to emit malarious exhalations. I do not think so; all these
low levels, surrounded by high banks which protect the crops from wind,
are most carefully cultivated with beans, cereals, cotton, and garden
produce, and I do not believe that successful gardens are malarious, but
only those localities where water is allowed to become stagnant, in
which case cultivation must be a failure. Many of these rich bottoms
were at one time valuable as "madder" grounds, and Consul White states
that in 1863 good madder-root land at Famagousta was worth 90 pounds per
acre. It may not be generally known that the indelible dye called
"Turkey red" was formerly produced from the madder-root, but that it has
been entirely superseded by the chemical invention known as "alizarine,"
which, by reducing the price in a ruinous degree, has driven the
vegetable substance out of the market, and the madder is no longer
cultivated. This chemical discovery has lowered the rich, deep, sandy
loams of Famagousta and of Morphu to a mere average agricultural value,
and has completely destroyed an important local industry.
The madder-root required three years before it arrived at maturity. From
Consul Riddell's report in 1872, the amount of madder exported reached
330 tons, of which 250 tons were shipped for Great Britain.
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