um. The average yield per
donum is 6 to 10 kiles, and varies between 3 to 4 kiles on dry land in a
poor year, to 16 to 20 on the best lands in a good year. When rains are
very late and spring weather is unfavourable, a farmer often fails to
recover even the seed.

Much might be done to increase the yield by better methods of husbandry,
by the use of improved implements for cultivating and reaping, and by
the use of threshing machines. An immense quantity of grain is consumed
by birds (larks, sparrows, doves, etc.), which at times literally strip
the fields and continue their depredations on the threshing-floors.

Wheat is sown from October to December; a field which has had a winter
crop is pastured after the harvest until January; in January and
February it is broken up and cross ploughed and sown immediately after
with a spring or summer crop.

The crop is cut about May-June. It is cut with a sickle ([Greek:
drepani]), tied into sheaves, and carried on donkeys or small carts to
the threshing-floors. The sickle is larger than the European one, and is
often provided with bells ("koudounia" or "sousounaria") to frighten the
snakes, and the handles are ornamented with leather tassels.

Several varieties of wheat are grown in the Island, mostly of the hard
kinds, these being preferred by millers.

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 1-1/2 kiles to the donum, and may be
expected to yield from 10 to 15 kiles; but 30 kiles 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 introducti