AUSTRALIAN TREES FOR CYPRUS.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3001, 27 September 1878, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN TREES FOR CYPRUS.

Private letters from the officers who have accompanied Sir Garnet Wolseley to Cyprus, and the public despatches of Mr Forbe's, the graphic correspondent of the Daily News, all concur in describing the islandl as a very desolate and woebegone ' place. The dearth of vegetation was the first and most striking peculiarity observed, and it was not till Nicosia, the capital, was reached, that anything approaching to a green tree was to be seen. .No doubt the disafforesiation of Cyprus is a proximate cause of its present unhealthiness, still more of the paucity of its rainfall. And one of the first acts of the new and energetic administration must be the plantation of suitable trees. There are many of rapid growth which have other fine qualities. Foremost of these is the well-known Eucalyptus globulus, the Blue Gum of Australia, which has worked such wonders already in combating malaria in such unhealthy districts as the Pontine Marshes," and which will soon do the same for Lefkosia, Larnaca, and Famagosta. Besides this there is the Australian acacia, which has been tried already in Algeria, where the rapid growth of its baric has made it also extre'itiely useful as a source of supply of. tannin. To these trees may be added the Bella sombra, a tree well known in Gibraltar and the south of Spain for the rapidity of its growth and the luxuriance of its foliage. The" restoration of the Paphian groves of old may be a matter, of time, but we at least expect a little shade and some green leaves in Cyprus within a year or two. —Home News.

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