Since rice, called "pa-ku'." is the chief agricultural product of
the Igorot it will be considered in the following sections first,
after which data of other vegetable products will be given.

Turning the soil for the annual crop of irrigated rice begins in the
middle of December and continues nearly two months. The labor of
turning and fertilizing the soil and transplanting the young rice
is all in progress at the same time -- generally, too, in the same
sementera. Since each is a distinct process, however, I shall consider
each separately. Before the soil is turned in a sementera it has given
up its annual crop of camotes, and the water has been turned on to
soften the earth. From two to twenty adults gather in a sementera,
depending on the size of the plat, of which there are relatively few
containing more than 10,000 square feet. They commonly range from
30 square feet to 1,500 or 2,000. The following description is one
of several made in detail while watching the rice industry of the
Bontoc Igorot.

The sementera is about 20 by 50 feet, or about 1,000 square feet,
and lies in the midst of the large valley area between Bontoc and
Samoki. It is on the Samoki side of the river, but is the property of a
Bontoc family. There are two groups of soil turners in the sementera --
three men in one, and two unmarried women, an older married woman, and
a youth in the other. At one end of the plat two, and part of the time
three, women are transplanting rice. Four men are bringing fertilizer
for the soil. Strange to say, each of the men in the group of three is
"clothed" -- one wears his breechcloth as a breechcloth, and the other
two wear theirs simply as aprons, hanging loose in front. Three of the
men bringing fertilizer are entirely nude except for their girdles,
since they ford the river with their loads between the sementera and