ALMONTE 



its beauty and in California for its friiit. It 

 reaches a height of twenty feet, and bears 

 beautiful pink or white flowers that appear 

 before the leaves, which are oval, pointed and 

 notched on the edge. The fruit has a downy 

 outer coat enclosing a hard, wrinkled shell, 

 within which is the kernel, or seed. 



There are two varieties of fruit, the sweet 

 and the bitter. Sweet almonds are widely used 

 for food, and are nutritious, as they contain 

 over thirty per cent of fat. They are eaten 

 either raw or cooked, and are also used in cakes 

 and candies. Sugared almonds and salted 

 almonds are popular delicacies. The kernel 

 of both varieties contains an oil that is used 

 in medicine and as a perfume. Bitter almonds, 

 through chemical processes, yield the poisonous 

 substance, prussic acid. Almond butter, a com- 

 pound of bitter almonds, rosewater, white of 

 egg and alcohol, is a toilet article. 



ALMONTE, almon' te, ONT., a town in 

 Lanark County, on the Canadian Pacific Rail- 

 way, thirty miles southwest of Ottawa. It is 

 important chiefly as a marketing and distribut- 

 ing point for the surrounding farm region, but 

 also has woolen and knitting mills, a soap 

 factory and stove and iron works. Almonte 

 was settled in 1830, and was incorporated as a 

 town in 1881. Population in 1911, 2,452. 



ALOE, aV o. Though these tropical plants 

 belong to the lily family, they bear little re- 

 semblance to any of the lilies. In height they 

 range from a few inches to thirty feet or more, 

 but despite these differences in size they have 

 certain well-marked characteristics which prove 

 their close relation. Their leaves are fleshy, 

 thick and lance-shaped, and generally bear 

 sharp spines at the point and along the edges. 

 Usually these appear to grow directly from the 

 ground, but sometimes they are borne on a 

 visible stem. The flower stalk shoots up from 

 the center, and bears at its end a dense cluster 

 of yellow or reddish flowers, which are rather 

 tube-like in form. 



In the African countries where the aloe is 

 most plentiful, cordage, fishing-nets, lines and 

 coarse cloth are made from its fibre, and from 

 its fleshy leaves is distilled the bitter aloes 

 which is of much importance in medicine. 

 From the leaves of certain species, too, a 

 beautiful violet color is obtained. The Amer- 

 ican aloe or agave is an entirely different plant, 

 known as the century plant (which see). 



Aloes in Medicine. This intensely bitter 

 drug, which is obtained by evaporating the 

 juice from the leaves of various aloe plants, 



210 ALPACA 



has been known since the beginning of the 

 Christian Era, at least. Aloes act upon the 



ALOE 

 Small inserts show details of flower head. 



liver and the intestines, and are the most im- 

 portant of the vegetable purgatives. 



ALPACA, alpak' a, a South American ani- 

 mal belonging to the same family as the camel, 

 and of special value to man because of its 

 thick growth of fine wool. The alpaca is 

 reared only on the high plateaus of the Andes 

 Mountains, and thrives especially well on the 

 heights of Chile and Peru. It resembles both 

 the llama and the sheep in appearance, but is 

 between them in size, and has a longer neck 

 than the sheep. Like them, it is a cud-chewing 

 animal. Its wool is finer than that of the llama 

 and straighter than that of the sheep. Its 

 color varies from grayish-white to almost black. 



The alpaca is shorn every year, when the 

 silky wool has grown to be eight inches in 

 length, and millions of pounds of wool are 

 shipped to Europe and America. The strong, 

 soft, elastic fiber is woven into beautiful fab- 

 rics, which, under the name alpaca, are made 

 into shawls, clothing for warm weather, coat- 

 linings and umbrella covers. A fabric of cot- 

 ton and wool, containing very little alpaca 



