re, in six weeks,
it attains a height of about one foot, and, provided the rains have
not failed, it is then pulled up by the roots and transplanted, stem
by stem, in the flooded fields. Each field is embanked with earth
(Tagalog, _pilapil_) so that the water shall not run off, and just
before the setting is commenced, the plough is passed for the last
time. Then men, women, and children go into the inundated fields
with their bundles of rice-plant and stick the stalks in the soft
mud one by one. It would seem a tedious operation, but the natives
are so used to it that they quickly cover a large field. In four
months from the transplanting the rice is ripe, but as at the end of
November there is still a risk of rain falling, the harvest is usually
commenced at the end of December, after the grain has hardened and
the dry season has fairly set in. If, at such an abnormal period, the
rains were to return (and such a thing has been known), the sheaves,
which are heaped for about a month to dry, would be greatly exposed
to mildew owing to the damp atmosphere. After the heaping--at the
end of January--the paddy, still in the straw, is made into stacks
(Tagalog, _Mandala_). In six weeks more the grain is separated from
the straw, and this operation has to be concluded before the next
wet season begins--say about the end of April. On the Pacific coast
(Camarines and Albay), where the seasons are reversed (_vide_ p. 22),
rice is planted out in September and reaped in February.

The separation of the grain is effected in several ways. Some beat
it out with their feet, others flail it, whilst in Cavite Province
it is a common practice to spread the sheaves in a circular enclosure
within which a number of ponies and foals are trotted.

In Negros Island there is what is termed _Ami_ rice--a small crop
which spontaneously rises in succession to the regular crop after
the first ploughing.

It seldom happens that a "seeding-plot" has to be allowed to run to
seed for want of rain for transplanting, but in such an event it is
said to yield at the most tenfold.

Nothing in Nature is more lovely than a valley of green half-ripened
rice-paddy, surrounded by verdant hills. Rice harvest-time is a lively
one among the poor tenants in Luzon, who, as a rule, are practically
the landowner's partners working for half the crop, against which they
receive advances during the year. Therefore, cost of labour may be
taken at 50 per cent. plus 10