The same
authority reports in 1873, "The falling-off, however, in the quantity
sent to Great Britain is remarkable, being only 230 cwts. (11.5 tons)."
This disappearance of a special agricultural industry has been an
enormous loss to the proprietors of the madder-lands.
The fruit-orchards and gardens of Famagousta are the finest in the
island. The land is extremely rich, and of a bright chocolate colour,
but the trees are, as usual in Cyprus, planted too close to each other,
which interferes with the necessary light and circulation of air. These
gardens commence just outside the walls, and, running parallel with the
sea below the large village of Varoschia, extend for about two miles
along the shore. Oranges, lemons, pomegranates, apricots, figs, prickly
pears and mulberry-trees, are the chief products, and it was here that
we obtained the largest and best oranges that I had tasted in the
island; generally this fruit is much inferior to the varieties imported
into England. The pomegranates of Cyprus are very celebrated, and are
exported to Egypt, but it is a fruit that is not generally appreciated
by Europeans. There are extensive gardens inland, but they do not convey
the idea of "gardens" as understood by Englishmen, but are merely dense
groves of various fruit-trees, irrigated by a cattle-wheel, and planted
with an utter disregard of all taste or arrangement.
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