The following English varieties have been imported and tried during the last four years: Improved Treasure, White Stand Up, and Improved Red Fife. The two former failed, being too late in maturing; the latter is still under trial, but it is not very attractive, being a late variety, and it gives a smaller yield than the native kinds. The same remarks apply to several wheats obtained from India and South Africa and which are still under trial.
Barley
This crop is sown about the same time as wheat, if anything slightly earlier; and it is ready for the sickle three or four weeks before wheat. When the straw is short the plant is uprooted, not cut.
It is sown at the rate of 1 to 1½ kilés to the donum, and may be expected to yield from 10 to 15 kilés; but 30 kilés is not uncommon in the plains, and even much larger yields have been recorded from time to time.
There are three native varieties, viz. the common 4-row, the ordinary 6-row and the Paphos 6-row barley, also grown around Davlos in the north-east of the Island. The last-named is heavier than the two former kinds. Little success has attended the introduction by the Agricultural Department of "Prize Prolific," "Gold Thorpe" and "Chevalier," which have been experimentally grown for the last three years. They mature late and have not resisted severe drought. Their yield is small compared with native barleys, although this may improve when they are fully acclimatised.
Barley is the staple food for all kinds of animals, pigs and poultry in Cyprus, and it is often used for bread-making in years of wheat shortage.
The tithe is mainly exported to England, where it has a good name for malting purposes, especially that produced in the Paphos district. It has failed to attain the place it deserves on the English market owing to the high percentage of dirt, etc., it mostly contains.
A sample of Cyprus barley examined at the Imperial Institute in 1914 proved to be of good malting quality, and similar material if marketed in commercial quantities would be readily saleable in the United Kingdom (see Bulletin of the Imperial Institute, vol. xii. 1914, p. 552).
A sample of naked or skinless barley from Cyprus has also been reported on by the Imperial Institute. This type of barley cannot be employed for malting for ordinary brewing purposes, but it was considered that the Cyprus material might be used by distillers (who only require a partially malted barley), and in any case the sample would rank as a good class feeding barley (ibid. vol. xiv, 1916, p. 159).
The average annual production of barley, as shown by the Blue Book returns, for the ten years ended 1913 was 2,449,285 kilés. For later years the figures are: