After each rice harvest the soil of the irrigated sementera is turned
for planting camotes, but this time it is turned dry. More effort is
needed to thrust the kay-kay deep enough into the dry soil, and it
is thrust three or four times before the earth may be turned. Only
one-half the surface of a sementera is turned for camotes. Raised
beds are made about 2 feet wide and 8 to 12 inches high. The spaces
between these beds become paths along which the cultivator and
harvester walks. The soil is turned from the spaces used as paths
over the spaces which become beds, but the earth under the bed is
not turned or loosened.

Bontoc beds are almost invariably constructed like parallel-sided,
square-cornered saw teeth standing at right angles to the blade of the
saw, which is also a camote bed, and are well shown in Pl. LXII. In
Tulubin this saw-tooth bed also occurs, but the continuous spiral
bed and the broken, parallel, straight beds are equally as common;
they are shown in figs. 2 and 3.


Fig 2. -- Parallel camote beds.



Fig 3. -- Spiral camote beds.


The mountain-side sementera for camotes, maize, millet, and beans is
prepared simply by being scratched or picked an inch or two deep with
the woman's camote stick, the su-wan'. If the plat is new the grass is