One Healthy Trunk In Full Vigour Measured
Twenty-Nine Feet In Circumference; Another, Twenty-Eight Feet Two
Inches.
Very many were upwards of twenty feet by my measuring-tape; and
had I accepted the hollow or split trees, there were some that would
have exceeded forty feet.
There can be little doubt, that these olives
throve at the period when Idalium was the great city in Cyprus; they may
have exceeded two thousand years in age, but any surmise would be the
wildest conjecture. It may not be generally known that the olive, which
is of slow growth and a wood of exceeding hardness, remains always a
dwarf tree; a tall olive is unknown, and it somewhat resembles a pollard
ilex. When by extreme age the tree has become hollow it possesses the
peculiar power of reproduction, not by throwing up root-shoots, but by
splitting the old hollowed trunk into separate divisions, which by
degrees attain an individuality, and eventually thrive as new and
independent trees, forming a group or "family-tree," nourished by the
same root which anchored the original ancestor.
The gnarled, weird appearance of these ancient groves of such gigantic
dimensions contrasted sadly with the treeless expanse beyond, and proved
that Cyprus had for very many centuries been the victim of neglect. The
olive is indigenous to the island, and the low scrub jungles of Baffo,
the Carpas district, and other portions abound with the wild species,
which can be rendered fruitful by grafting. In selecting trees for the
extension of forests, there is a common-sense rule to guide us by
observing those varieties which are indigenous to the country; these can
be obtained at the lowest cost, and their success is almost assured, as
no time need be lost from the day of their removal to the new
plantation. Such trees as are rendered fruitful by grafting offer
peculiar advantages, as the stocks already exist upon which superior
varieties may be connected. The principal food of the Cypriotes consists
of olives, beans, bread, and onions; they seldom eat what we should call
"cooked food;" whether this is owing to the scarcity of fuel, or whether
it is natural in this climate to avoid flesh, I cannot determine: some
say the people are too poor, and cannot afford mutton at twopence a
pound, while at the same time they will not kill the oxen that are
required for purposes of draught; they refuse the milk of cows, and only
use that of sheep or goats. The fact remains that the country people
seldom eat butcher's meat, but subsist upon olives, oil, bread, cheese,
and vegetables.
Under these circumstances it would be natural to suppose that the
accepted articles of consumption would be highly cultivated and superior
in quality; but the reverse is the fact. The olive-oil is so inferior
that foreign oil is imported from France for the use of the upper
classes; the olives are of a poor description, and, as a rule, few
vegetables are cultivated except in the immediate vicinity of town
markets, the agricultural population or country people being too
careless to excel in horticulture, and depending mainly upon the wild
vegetables which the soil produces in abundance.
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