The broad valley of the Rio Grande de Cagayan is not occupied by the Igorot. It is too poorly watered and forested to meet his requirements. It is mainly a vast pasture, supporting countless deer; along the foothills and the forest-grown creek and river bottoms there are many wild hogs; and in some areas herds of wild carabaos and horses are found. Near the main river is a numerous population of Christians. Many are Ilokano imported originally by the tobacco companies to carry on the large tobacco plantations of the valley, and the others are the native Cagayan.
The table-lands were once generally forested, but to-day many are deforested, undulating, beautiful pastures. Some were cleared by the Igorot for agriculture, and doubtless others by forest fires, such as one constantly sees during the dry season destroying the mountain forests of northern Luzon.
General observations have not been made on the temperature and humidity of much of the mountain country of northern Luzon. However, scientific observations have been made and recorded for a series of about ten years at Baguio, Benguet Province, at an altitude of 4,777 feet, and it is from the published data there gathered that the following facts are gained.[3] The temperature and rainfall are the average means deduced from many years’ observations:
| Month | Mean temperature | Number of rainy days | Rainfall |
| °F | Inches | ||
| January | 63.5 | 1 | 0.06 |
| February | 62.1 | 2 | 0.57 |
| March | 66.9 | 3 | 1.46 |
| April | 70.5 | 1 | 0.32 |
| May | 68.3 | 16 | 4.02 |
| June | 67.2 | 26 | 12.55 |
| July | 66.5 | 26 | 14.43 |
| August | 64.6 | 31 | 37.03 |
| September | 67.0 | 23 | 11.90 |
| October | 67.0 | 13 | 4.95 |
| November | 68.2 | 13 | 2.52 |
| December | 66.0 | 16 | 5.47 |
It is seen that April is the hottest month of the year and February is the coldest. The absolute lowest temperature recorded is 42.10° Fahrenheit, noted February 18, 1902. Of course the temperature varies considerably—a fact due largely to altitude and prevailing winds. The height of the rainy season is in August, during which it rains every day, with an average precipitation of 37.03 inches. Baguio is known as much rainier than many other places in the Cordillera Central, yet it must be taken as more or less typical of the entire mountain area of northern Luzon, throughout which the rainy season is very uniform. Usually the days of the rainy season are beautiful and clear during the forenoon, but all-day rains are not rare, and each season has two or three storms of pelting, driving rain which continues without a break for four or five days.
Igorot peoples
In several languages of northern Luzon the word “Ĭg-o-rot′” means “mountain people.” Dr. Pardo de Tavera says the word “Igorrote” is composed of the root word “golot,” meaning, in Tagalog, “mountain chain,” and the prefix “i,” meaning “dweller in” or “people of.” Morga in 1609 used the word as “Igolot;” early Spaniards also used the word frequently as “Ygolotes”—and to-day some groups of the Igorot, as the Bontoc group, do not pronounce the “r” sound, which common usage now puts in the word. The Spaniards applied the term to the wild peoples of present Benguet and Lepanto Provinces, now a short-haired, peaceful people. In after years its common application spread eastward to the natives of the comandancia of Quiangan, in the present Province of Nueva Vizcaya, and northward to those of Bontoc.
The word “Ĭg-o-rot′” is now adopted tentatively as the name of the extensive primitive Malayan people of northern Luzon, because it is applied to a very large number of the mountain people by themselves and also has a recognized usage in ethnologic and other writings. Its form as “Ĭg-o-rot′” is adopted for both singular and plural, because it is both natural and phonetic, and, because, so far as it is possible to do so, it is thought wise to retain the simple native forms of such words as it seems necessary or best to incorporate in our language, especially in scientific language.