Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-10-07
An ALPACA FARM.
Description and Habits of an Uns
calmly but Useful South Aneri-
can Animal.
Alfred Trunnt

Alfred Tumble in American AgriculturiSt.
1t was in a bitter wind storm, on the DESC
late table lands of the Peruvian Andes, that
first saw ludicrously ungainly beast pop
up from behind rock, as the stumbling feet
of my mule sent some loose stones rolling
noisily down a precipice. The brute sur
veyed me for an instant, then shook his hairy
head, gave loud snort, and vanished The
echoes Of the lonely pass bore to my ears a
singular noise, as if an army Of barefooted
men was flying down the mountain. I had
startled heard of grazing alpacas, and
their sentry had warned them of my ap-
proach. The noise was the beating Of their
huge, cartilage-padded feet on the rocky
ground
As rode Oh, [ saw flocks from time tC
time grubbing the sparse grass from the
rocl-sprinkled levels and the steep declivities,
which are such peculiar feature of the
heart Of the Andes. There was always one
big fellow perched on a rock, or at some
other point of vantage, and at his snort the
whole herd would turn tail and take to fight
Often l would see the sentry, without seeing
his comrades, balanced far above me on some
splinterad pinnacle of stone, with his big,
soft eyes fixed on me, ready to give the signal
rs soon as he considered my proximity dan
gerous.
IL was a singular sensation, the meeting
With this alert brute, the only living thing
but myself and mule and an occasional
condor, among these desolate mountains.
whose peaks pierced the sky in line of
savage teeth, like huge saw. That evening,
on a rock-strewn plateau, without bush and
almost without a blade of grass around it,
1 halted at a dreary, stone-built house.
With a roof made of bundles of straw, held
down with planks and stout saplings. Skulls
and skeletons of horned cattle and other
animals were scattered all around. From
the wall OF the house projected a couple OF
big bulls horns, apparently cemented in the
masonary for ornamental purposes. As
drew rein, q terrific snorting and scramblin2
broke out in a paddock, fenced with stout
poles, behind the house. This was an alpaca
farm.
The alpaca, which many people confuse
with the llama, though very closely allied to
it in form and characteristics, is the ''gold
mine OF the Indians of the Andes, especially
those of Peru, Bolivia, and Chill. 1t is an
extraordinary brute, in more senses than one
It's appearance, with its full coat OF wool is SD
premely ridiculous. 1t is as large as big
sheep, with a neck like a small giraffe; a
mere bundle of hair carried around on -four
legs, terminated with feet resembling those
of an ostrich Its legs are powerful, and in
appropriately graceful, in comparison with
the body they support and the feet in which
they terminate.
If the alpaca is absurdly ugly with its hair
on, it is positive burlesque after it has been
fully SHARED 1t is sheared like a Sheep
only its head is left covered 1t is some
times sheared once year, yielding six to
eight-inch fleece, but the more provident al
paca farmers only shear once in two or three
years, when they get wool from fifteen to
thirty inches long. The wool is found rang
ing in color from white through gray, yellow
and brown to black The animal looks black
however, as the fleece exudes an oil, and
mats with the dust of the mountain pastures
in which it roalns at large. The fleece is
very fine in texture, metallic in lustre when
clean, and the fibre is far stronger than that
of any sleeps wool which know of.