Sometimes
they are along old water courses which no longer flow during the dry
season; such are often employed for rice during the rainy season.
The unirrigated mountain-side sementera, called "fo-ag'," is built by
simply clearing the trees and brush from a mountain plat. No effort
is made to level it and no dike walls are built. Now and then one is
hemmed in by a low boundary wall.
The irrigated sementeras are built with much care and labor. The earth
is first cleared; the soil is carefully removed and placed in a pile;
the rocks are dug out; the ground shaped, being excavated and filled
until a level results. This task for a man whose only tools are sticks
is no slight one. A huge bowlder in the ground means hours -- often
days -- of patient, animal-like digging and prying with hands and
sticks before it is finally dislodged. When the ground is leveled
the soil is put back over the plat, and very often is supplemented
with other rich soil. These irrigated sementeras are built along
water courses or in such places as can be reached by turning running
water to them. Inasmuch as the water must flow from one to another,
there are practically no two sementeras on the same level which
are irrigated from the same water course.
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