Part 10

Basket-making is a considerable industry, as all fruit and much other produce is transported in baskets mostly designed for the backs of donkeys or mules. The export trade of fruit and vegetables creates a constant demand (see Plate VII, fig. 2). The bulk of these baskets are made of reeds (_Arundo_) which grow luxuriantly by the side of water channels or wherever moist soil is found. This material is not an ideal one for the purpose, as the baskets are easily crushed and lose shape, to the detriment of the contents. The reeds are therefore often stiffened by the introduction of an occasional breadth of some other material, _e.g._ shinia (_Pistacia Lentiscus_), tremithia or myrtle. All these are much used in basket-making, though the latter is heavy. There is a native willow (_Salix alba_) and also the weeping willow (_S. babylonica_). These have not been used until recently when, by the efforts of the Agricultural Department, a number of these trees have been pollarded and the new shoots have been found quite satisfactory for the purpose.

Six years ago a number of osier cuttings were imported from England, but unfortunately they have not succeeded so far owing to a succession of dry years. The surviving plants were this autumn removed to a more suitable site, but after suffering from drought they have now been almost destroyed by heavy floods.

In order to encourage the manufacture of better baskets for the fruit trade between Cyprus and Egypt the Agricultural Department provides practical instruction in basket-making, and a qualified teacher pays occasional visits to basket-making villages and demonstrates the work and teaches improved patterns to the villagers and school boys.

_Fruit and Vegetable Preserving_

There is little doubt that the establishment of small factories for canning or bottling fruits and vegetables would be a profitable undertaking. Owing to the suddenness with which, in the heat of summer, the fruits ripen in Cyprus, and the consequent glut that often ensues, market prices fall to a point at which it does not pay to pick and handle. Transport difficulties also make it precarious, in the case of soft fruits, to attempt a sale outside the immediate place of production. Increased cultivation is thus discouraged.

In growing fruits or vegetables for canning or bottling a man is independent of market fluctuations, whereas at present both producers and consumers are in the hands of the local shopkeepers, who have the former entirely at their mercy.

The Egyptian fruit and vegetable trade is very well worth cultivating, but until better measures can be enforced in the matter of transport by sea as well as land, shippers run the risk of heavy losses, which, no doubt, recoil upon the unlucky producers.

* * * * *

Specimens of most of the products referred to in these notes may be seen in the Cyprus Court in the Public Exhibition Galleries of the Imperial Institute.

_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury, England._

* * * * *

Transcriber's note:

In the original, illustrations were marked as 'facing page.' That has not been reproduced in this e-book.