thus the
fruit ripens at a time when, the store in the country being small,
its price is high. Although the rice fields could very well give two
crops yearly, they are tilled only once. It is planted out in August,
with intervals of a hand's-breadth between each row and each individual
plant; and within four months the rice is ripe. The fields are never
fertilized, and but seldom ploughed; the weeds and the stubble being
generally trodden into the already soaked ground by a dozen carabaos,
and the soil afterwards simply rolled with a cylinder furnished
with sharp points, or loosened with the harrow (sorod). Besides the
agricultural implements named above, there are the Spanish hatchet
(azadon) and a rake of bamboo (kag-kag) in use. The harvest is
effected in a peculiar manner. The rice which is soonest ripe is
cut for ten per cent, that is, the laborer receives for his toil the
tenth bundle for himself. At this time of year rice is very scarce,
want is imminent, and labor reasonable. The more fields, however,
that ripen, the higher become the reapers' wages, rising to twenty,
thirty, forty, even fifty per cent; indeed, the executive sometimes
consider it to be necessary to force the people to do harvest by
corporal punishment and imprisonment, in order to prevent a large
portion of the crop from rotting on the stalk. Nevertheless, in very
fruitful years a part of the harvest is lost. The rice is cut halm by
halm (as in Java) with a peculiarly-formed knife, or, failing such,
with the sharp-edged flap of a mussel [108] found in the ditches of
the rice-fields, which one has only to stoop to pick up.

[Rice land production.] A quinon of the best rice land is worth from
sixty to one hundred dollars ($5.50 to $9 per acre). Rice fields on
rising grounds are dearest, as they are not exposed to devastating
floods as are those in the plain, and may be treated so as to insure
the ripening of the fruit at the time when the highest price is to
be obtained.

[The harvest.] A ganta of rice is sufficient to plant four topones
(1 topon = 1 loan); from which 100 manojos (bundles) are gathered,
each of which yields half a ganta of rice. The old ganta of Naga,
however, being equal to a modern ganta and a half, the produce
may be calculated at 75 cavanes per quinon, about 9 3/4 bushels per
acre. [109] In books 250 cavanes are usually stated to be the average
produce of a quinon; but that is an exaggeration. The fertility of
the fields c