TREES.
Caroubs. Olives. Walnuts. 267,779 114,413 957
Natural pine and Cyprus forests, with oak, &c., not counted.
VINEYARDS.
Cultivated land. Uncultivated land. 40,642 donums. 114,650 donums. 21,180 donums.
According to this official statistical representation the cultivated land would be in proportion to the population about five donums, or two and a half acres, per individual.
The question of ownership of lands will eventually perplex the government to a greater extent than many persons would imagine, and the difficulty attending the verification of titles will increase with every year's delay.
Before the British occupation, land was of little value, and an extreme looseness existed in the description of boundaries and landmarks. In the absence of fences the Cypriote can generally encroach upon any land adjoining his limit, should it belong to the state. Every season he can drive his plough a few paces further into his neighbour's holding, unless prevented, until by degrees he succeeds in acquiring a considerable accession. The state is the sufferer to an enormous extent by many years of systematic invasion. Forest land has been felled and cleared by burning, and the original site is now occupied by vineyards. The bribery and corruption that pervaded all classes of officials prior to the British occupation enabled an individual to silence the local authority, while he in many instances more than doubled his legal holding. The absence of defined boundaries has facilitated these encroachments. According to an official report this difficulty is dwelt upon most forcibly as requiring immediate investigation. The vague definition in title-deeds, which simply mentions the number of donums, affords no means of proving an unjust extension; such terms are used as "the woods bounded by a hill," or "the woods bounded by uncultivated land," and this indefinite form of expression leaves a margin of frontier that is practically without limit, unless the invader may be stopped by arriving within a yard of his nearest neighbour. My informant, Colonel Warren, R. A., chief commissioner of Limasol, assured me that some holders of land in his district, whose titles show an amount of ninety donums, lay claim to ten times the area. There is hardly a proprietor who does not occupy a ridiculous surplus when compared with his title-deeds, and the encroachments are even now proceeding.
This system of land-robbery was connived at by the officials for a "CONSIDERATION;" old title-deeds were exchanged for new on the application of the holder, and the seals of the venal authorities rendered them valid, at the same time that hundreds of acres were fraudulently transferred from the state. When the intention of a British occupation was made public, a general rush was made for obtaining an excess over the amount defined in the title-deeds, by the swindling method; and the extent to which this plunder was extended may be imagined from the fact that 40,000 such documents were awaiting the necessary signatures when, by the arrival of the British officials, the Turkish authority, who could not sign the deeds with sufficient expedition, was dismissed, and the false titles were invalidated.
The monasteries and the vacouf (Turkish religious lands) lay claim to lands of vast and undefined extent, which are mystified by titles and gifts for charitable purposes, surrounded with clouds of obscure usages and ancient rules that will afford a boundless field for litigation. In fact, the existing government has arrived at the unpleasant position of being excluded from the land, nearly all of which is claimed either by individuals or religious institutions.