As has been said, the manure fertilizer is placed about the sementera
in piles. The women thoroughly spread this fertilizer with their hands
and feet when they transplant (see Pl. LIX). When the soil is ready
the transplanter grasps a handful of the plants, twists off 3 or 4
inches of the blades, leaving the plant about 6 inches long, and, while
holding the plants in one hand, with the other she rapidly thrusts them
one by one into the soft bed. They are placed in fairly regular rows,
and are about 5 inches apart. The planter leans enthusiastically over
her work, usually resting one elbow on her knee -- the left elbow,
since most of the women are right-handed -- and she sets from forty
to sixty plants per minute.

When the sementeras are planted they present a clean and beautiful
appearance -- even the tips of the rice blades twisted off are
invariably crowded into the muddy bed to assist in fattening the crop.

As many as a dozen women often work together in one sementera to
hasten the planting. There are usually two or three little girls with
their mothers, who while away the hours playing work. They stuff up
the chinks of the stone walls with dirt and vegetable matter; they
carry together the few camotes discovered in this last handling of
the old camote bed; and they quite successfully and industriously
play at transplanting rice, though such small girls are not obliged
to work in the field.

Camotes are also transplanted. The women cut or pick off the "runners"
from the perpetual vines in the sementeras near the dwellings. These
they transplant in the unirrigated mountain sementeras after the
crops of millet and maize have been gathered.