It
produces an average annual crop of ten cargoes of palay, each worth
1 peso. Thus there is an annual gross profit of ten per cent on the
value of the permanent investment.
It requires ten men one day to turn the soil and fertilize the
plat. The wage paid in palay is equivalent to 5 cents per laborer,
or 50 cents. Five women can transplant the rice in one day; cost,
25 cents. Cultivating and protecting the crop falls to the members
of the family which owns the sementera, so the Igorot say; he claims
never to have to pay for such labor. Twenty people can harvest the
crop in a day; cost, 1 peso.
The total annual expense of maintaining the sementera as a productive
property is, therefore, equivalent to 1.75 pesos. This leaves 8.25
pesos net profit when the annual expense is deducted from the annual
gross profit. A net profit of 8.25 per cent is about equivalent to
the profit made on the 10,000-acre Bonanza grain farms in the valley
of the Red River of the North, and the 5,000-acre corn farm of Iowa.
Zooculture
The carabao, hog, chicken, and dog are the only animals domesticated
by the Igorot of the Bontoc culture area.
Cattle are kept by Benguet Igorot throughout the extent of the
province.
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