There are, it is said, over 20 different kinds of rice-paddy. These are comprised in two common groups—the one is called Macan rice (Spanish, Arroz de Semillero) which is raised on alluvial soil on the lowlands capable of being flooded conveniently with water, and the other has the general denomination (in Luzon Is.) of Paga or Dumali (Spanish, Arroz de Secano) and is cultivated on high lands and slopes where inundation is impracticable.
The Macan, or low-land rice, is much the finer quality, the grain being usually very white, although Macan rice is to be found containing up to 25 per cent. of red grain, known in Tagálog as Tan͠gi, or Malagcquit. The white grain is that most esteemed. The yield of grain varies according to the quality of the soil. In the north of Bulacan Province the average crop of Macan rice may be taken at 80 cabans of grain for one caban of seed. In the south of the same province the return reaches only one-half of that. In the east of Pampanga Province, in the neighbourhood of Aráyat, Magálang, and Candava villages, the yield is still higher, giving, in a good year, as much as 100 cabans for one of seed. In Negros a return of 50 cabans to one may be taken as a fair average.
Paga rice always shows a large proportion of red grain, and the return is, at the most, half that of Macan yield, but whilst rarely more than one crop per annum is obtained from low-lands (Macan rice)—taking the average throughout the Islands—in most places up to three crops of Paga rice can be obtained.
Besides the ordinary agricultural risks to which rice cultivation is exposed, a special danger often presents itself. The Paga rice is frequently attacked by flies (Tagálog, Alutan͠gia), which suck the flower just before seeding, and the person in charge of the plantation has to stroll in the evenings and mornings among the setting to whisk off these insects with a bunch of straws on the end of a stick, or catch them with a net to save the grain. Both Macan and Paga are sometimes damaged by an insect, known in Ilocos Province as Talibatab, which eats through the stalk of the plant before maturity, causing the head, or flower, to droop over and wither, but this does not happen every season.
To plant Macan rice the grain or seed is sown in the month of June on a piece of land called the “seeding-plot,” where, 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 (Tagálog, pilápil) 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 (Tagálog, Mandalá). 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 landownerʼs 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 per cent. stolen from the ownerʼs share.
Paddy-planting is not a lucrative commercial undertaking, and few take it up on a large scale. None of the large millers employing steam power are, at the same time, grain cultivators. There is this advantage about the business, that the grower is less likely to be confronted with the labour difficulty, for the work of planting out and gathering in the crop is, to the native and his family, a congenial occupation. Rice-cultivation is, indeed, such a poor business for the capitalist that perhaps a fortune has never been made in that sole occupation, but it gives a sufficient return to the actual tiller of his own land. The native woman is often quite as clever as her husband in managing the estate hands, for her tongue is usually as effective as his rattan. I venture to say there are not six white men living who, without Philippine wives, have made fortunes solely in agriculture in these Islands.