Did some research about this old Farm and there are quite interesting details. CMail is wrong with the ownership as it belongs still to a German as one can see on the official plot map of the Government. It is quite a large area in white color saying German Agricultural.
http://www.moi.gov.cy/MOI/tph/tph.nsf/A ... _25000.pdf
The last German owner came up with a lot of new things for Paphos at this time for example to bring the first tractor with spiked wheels and self irrigation..specially the nettles to be exported to German I find very interesting as I used them also when doing my organic farm. This is only a part of the full article:
In the history books of Geroskipou, the estate is described as one of the largest ‘chifliks’ in the region. A chiflik is a Turkish term for a system of land management which was adopted during the Ottoman Empire. It extended around 1,630 hectares and held a significant role in the history of Geroskipou, employing many residents and providing much of the produce for the area.
Its most recent private owners were a German couple, Karl and Emilie Widmaier, who had both been army doctors. They purchased the Gerokipia estate in 1929 from the previous owner, Leandros Kakogiannis, who had gone bankrupt in the economic crisis of 1929-1932.
Widmaier died in 1936 and his wife took over running the estate until her death in 1976. Following the death of her sister Carolina, who was her heir, the estate passed onto the government, who later allocated separate plots to ‘landless’ residents of Geroskipou.
milie (second from left) with family and staff members
Emilie (second from left) with family and staff members
The Widmaiers were not professional farmers and created quite a stir in Geroskipou with their somewhat outlandish farming methods. Widmaier favoured a camel to pull his iron plough, and used other animals to pull his harvester. But they also made a significant improvement to the methods of land cultivation.
The farmer was reportedly the first to import a tractor with spiked wheels.
The farm was also self-irrigated using a large water cistern, and also had a number of sheds where huge amounts of nettles were dried out before being shipped to Germany for use in the pharmaceutical industry.
The buildings also provided pens and stables for animals. Their crops were mainly wheat, barley, beans, vetch, cotton, onions and other vegetables."
Max
