The vine
requires little water after the young grapes have formed, and the
burning sun-light which is favourable for their development would
destroy all cereals upon those steep inclinations, where a casual
shower, instead of soaking into the earth and nourishing the crops,
rushes quickly over the surface and drains superficially into the deep
vale below. The land of the vineyards is WINE land, and adapted
specially by the quality of the soil and the peculiarity of climate for
the production of grapes. In addition to the impossibility of converting
this land to other purposes of cultivation would be the loss to the
proprietor of all his plant, buildings, jars, &c., &c., which would
become valueless.
This is, as well as I can describe the grievances, the real position of
the vine-grower. Although since the British occupation he has escaped
the extra extortion of the tax-farmer, he is still the slave of petty
vexations and delays, which strangle him in red-tape and render his
avocation a misery; without profit, leaving only a bare subsistence.
What is to be done?
The first necessary change is a system of roads, only sufficiently wide
to admit of the native two-wheeled carts, with sidings every half mile
to enable them to pass when meeting. Our usual English mistake has been
made, in the only two metalled highways that the engineers have
constructed in Cyprus, "that everything must be English;" thus we have
two costly roads of great width from Larnaca to Lefkosia, and from
Limasol to Platraes, which are entirely unsuitable to the requirements
of the country; and as there are no branch roads in communication, the
people are hardly benefited, as they cannot reach the main artery with
wheeled conveyances.
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