Cyprus produces a considerable variety of fruits, the chief ones exported being raisins, pomegranates, oranges and lemons, and grapes. There is a considerable and expanding export trade in the fruits enumerated, as shown by Blue Book returns as under:
| Year. | £. |
| 1904 | 29,706 |
| 1905 | 29,265 |
| 1906 | 41,716 |
| 1907 | 36,009 |
| 1908 | 35,027 |
| 1909 | 29,890 |
| 1910 | 52,267 |
| 1911 | 57,393 |
| 1912 | 59,887 |
| 1913 | 69,097 |
The pomegranate of Famagusta is famous, and the annual export of this fruit alone during the five years ended 1913 averaged £14,682.
Among the mountain villages apples, pears, and plums are extensively grown; the latter specially being in good demand in Egypt.
Apricots and kaisha trees are grown generally throughout the Island, and their fruits are particularly good and plentiful. The last-named is a delicious variety with a delicate flavour and externally somewhat resembles the nectarine. Peaches are mostly grafted on almond stocks, as these are hardy and good drought-resisters, but there are a fair number of European varieties. Almond trees abound in all parts and do extremely well if properly cultivated. Other fairly common fruit trees are the quince and loquat, or Japanese medlar.
For several years choice kinds of fruit trees have been imported from England, and many thousands of trees of different kinds throughout the Island have been grafted and are now beginning to produce fruit of excellent quality. Good work has been done by the Perapedhi Wine Association, whose garden has been a centre for the dissemination of choice grafts.
Unhappily the village growers have been very reluctant to apply proper cultivation or to carry out advice in treating their trees, which have become the hosts of all kinds of diseases and insect pests. A better spirit is now being shown in this direction.
Vines and Wines
Writing in 1896, Gennadius described the industry and perseverance of the peasants, who with most imperfect implements, by breaking up the hard rock and building up the scanty soil, formed vineyards on the steep mountain sides, and often up to their very summits. These vineyards, he says, having been mostly planted in haste in the happy days of the demand for wines (when French vineyards were destroyed by phylloxera), were formed by the personal labour of the peasant eked out by the help of loans. Since then the wine trade has passed through critical times and prices have often been greatly depreciated. The small vine-growers, who are also for the most part wine-producers, fell on evil times and became heavily indebted. They have remained so until the last year or two, when, owing to the large demand and the high prices of wines in Egypt, they have been able to free themselves.
Gennadius regarded the cultivation of the vine in Cyprus as indisputably unprofitable, and was in favour of checking its extension, and even advocated the imposition of a special tax on new plantations. At the time he wrote there was an overproduction, and the value of wine had greatly fallen, and the revenue which Cypriot wine-makers could gain therefrom would hardly suffice to cover the expenses of its transport to the market, the annual interest on their debts, and the taxes they had to meet.