ALMISSA, al-me'sa. A port of the Austrian crownland of Dalmatia, 14 miles southeast of Spalato, at the mouth of the Cetina. Almissa is famous as the rendezvous of the pirates once infesting the Adriatic. Pop., 1890, 13,200; 1900, 15,100.
ALMODOVAR DEL CAMPO, al'md-Do'viir del kam'po. A town of New Castile, Spain, in the province of Ciudad Real, 22 miles southwest of Ciudad Real (Map: Spain, C 3). It stands on the summit of a ridge, near the Vega, a branch of the Guadiana. The streets are toler- ably clean but ill paved. There are ruins of an ancient castle. The inhabitants are chiefly em- ployed in agriculture, and the only manufactures are domestic. Pop., 1900, 11,015.
ALMOHADES, fil'mo-hfidz (Ar. Al-Muwah- hidi'iH. "who ]aiichiim the Unity of God"). The name of a dynasty that ruknl in northwestern Africa and Spain during tlic twelftli and thir- teenth centuries. In the reign of Ali, second of the Almoravides (q.v.). a religious teacher. Mo- hammed ibn Allah, calling himself El Mahdi (the guided), founded the sect of the Almohades in Africa. They were opposed to the realistic anthropomorphism of orthodox Islam. Theirleader exercised great influence over the Arabs and Ber- bers throughout Northern Africa. Mohammed im- posed on his disciples new ceremonies, and com- posed for their benefit a special treatise entitled On the Unit II of God. Mohammed found a suc- cessor in Abd-al-Mumin, under whom the Almo- hades rose to great power. They extended their conquests into Spain in 1140, subjugating Anda- lusia, Valencia, and a part of Aragon. and Por- tugal as far as the Tagus. Under Yusuf and Yakub-al-Mansur (see Abu Yusuf Yakuh), the dynasty of Almohades continued to flourish in great splendor. But in 1235 they were complete- ly defeated by Christians in the battle of Novas de Tolosa, the result of which was a gen- eral collapse of their power in Spain. The power of the Almohades in Spain terminated in 1257 and in Africa in 1209. Consult: Freeman, His- torti and Conquests of the inraccns (Oxford, 1856) ; Coppee, Conquest of Siniin by the Arab- Moors (Boston, 1881); Fagnan, "Histoire des Almohades," in La Revue Africaine (Algiers, 1892). See Abd-al-Mumin.
AL-MOKANNA, •ll'mo-kiin'na, or MOKEN- NA. See iloiiAM.MEnAN Sects.
ALMON, ril'mon, John (1737-1805). An
English journalist and bookseller, born in Liver-
])ool. He attended school for a short time at
Warrington, was apprenticed to a printer and
bookseller, and in 1759 settled in London as a
journeyman printer. He soon took to pamphlet-
eering, became a member of the staff of The Lon-
don Gazetteer, and by a pamphlet entitled .4.
Itcvieni of Mr. Pitt's Admi)iistrntion won the
favor of Burke and others of the opposition party
at the time of Pitt's resignation (1701). He
then became a publisher and bookseller on his
own account, and was patronized largely by the
members of the opposition. He was a close
friend and ardent supporter of John Wilkes
(q.v.), and in 1870 was fined for selling a paper
containing one of the letters of .Junius. In 1784
lie became proprietor and editor of the General
Advertiser, but two years later was driven by a
libel trial to relinquish this undertaking. He
rendered an inqxirtant service to students of
American history by publishing The Remembrancer, a monthly collection of contemporary documents bearing on the Revolutionary War, especially of such documents "as serve to display the injustice of the design and the folly of the councils of Great Britain." He also published a valuable Collection of all the Treaties of Peace, Alliance, and Commerce between Great Britain
and Other Powers from lliSS to 1771; Biograph-
ical, Literary, and Political Anecdotes (1797);
and Correspondence of John Wilkes, with a
Memoir of his Life (1805).
ALMONACID DE TOLEDO, -il'mo-na-theD'
da t6-l:"i'D6. A little town of Spain in the prov-
ince of Toledo, connected with Toledo by rail.
It contains an old Moorish castle, and is famous
chiefly as the place of a battle between Spanish
and French forces on August 11, 1809, in which
the Spanish forces, numbering about 30,000, were
defeated. Pop., 1900. 1574.
ALMOND, ii'mund (Lat. amygdala, Gk. d/avy-
lili], amygdale) , Ami/gdahis. A genus of the
natural order Rosacefe, consisting of trees
and shrubs. The almond tree {Amygdalus com-
munis) grows from twenty to thirty feet high,
closely resembles the peach in general appear-
ance and bloom, and furnishes the almond nuts
of commerce. It is native to the ilediterranean
basin and southwestern Asia, and has been in
cultivation from remote times. The fruit is a
drupe with a thin, hard covering, which splits
open when ripe. Almonds are of two kinds —
bitter and sweet. The bitter almond is culti-
vated to a limited extent in Mediterranean
countries, and the nuts are used in the manufac-
ture of flavoring extracts and of prussie acid.
The sweet, or edible, almond is grown on a com-
mercial scale in the south of Europe, in Cali-
fornia, and in some other countries of similar
climate. The nuts contain a large quantity of
a bland, fixed oil ; they have an agreeable flavor,
and are rised for desserts, in confectionery, and
medicinally in an emulsion which forms a pleas-
ant, cooling, diluent drink. There are two classes
of sweet almonds — the hard shell and the soft
shell almond. The latter only is important com-
mercially. Of foreign varieties, the long almond
of Malaga, known as the Jordan almond, and the
broad almond of Valencia, are most valued in
the trade. In California, success in almond-
growing came only with the improvement of
selected seedlings of local origin. Ne Plus Ultra,
Nonpareil. IXL, and Languedoc are the best-
known of these. In 1897, California produced
218 carloads of nuts. In addition to the home
production, the United States imports, annually,
about a million dollars' worth of nuts. In Syria
and northern Africa, almonds are grown on dry
and stony soils. They are believed to withstand
drought better than any other fruit. In Califor-
nia, good-paying crops are secured only on fertile,
well-drained soils, preferably warm loams; and
in the arid regions water for irrigation must be
abundant.
The almond is propagated mainly by budding on seedling bitter almond stocks. Trees come into bearing in from two to four years from budding, and reach mature fruitage in from seven to ten years. On strong land the trees are set at least twenty-f(Mir feet apart each way. The tree is shaped during the first three years' growth, after which little pruning is required. Varieties should be mixed in orchard planting, to insure cross-pollination.
