After the clearing, the field is fenced in so as to protect it from deer, wild pigs, and carabao.  The rudest type of protection consists of a barricade of brush, strengthened with forked sticks, in the crotches of which poles are laid.  The more common method is to set bamboo tubes, at intervals, around the whole plot and to lash to them other tubes which have been split in half.  A still better fence is made by cutting three holes, about a foot apart, through each upright and to insert smaller bamboo through these.

When the rains begin, the men go to the fields, each with two hardwood sticks whittled to tapering rounded ends.  These are driven alternately into the soil making shallow holes an inch or so in depth, into each of which the women drop several seed rice.  The whole field is gone over in this way; soil is pushed into the holes with the feet, and frequently the task is finished by sowing a few handfuls of seed broadcast and distributing it by brushing back and forth with a leafy branch. [188]

In the valley districts the planting sticks are cut as needed, but in the mountains, where the upland rice is more important, strong bamboo poles fitted with hardwood points are in general use.  These implements, known as tepon (Fig. 15, No. 1), are invariably carefully decorated with incised designs, and are preserved from year to year.  Commonly, the divisions between the sections of the bamboo are knocked out and the tube used as a receptacle for the seed rice.

As the mountain fields need special protection, it is customary to build near them little elevated houses in which the workers may rest, and in which the watchers can live during the time the grain must be guarded.  If the plots are near to a village, such a house seldom consists of more than a rude framework of poles, which support a grass roof, and to which a bamboo floor is lashed, two or three feet above the ground; but if the fields are at a distance, these structures are provided with sides, and are raised high on strong logs.  Such high, well built houses are necessary, both to protect the occupants from surprise attacks of enemies, and to afford shelter against driving winds or rains.  It is not an uncommon occurrence for a whole family to go to one of these isolated mountain dwellings and reside for a considerable period, particularly when the rice is approaching maturity.

These upland fields produce much smaller crops than do the wet lands, and as they are quickly exhausted, it is not customary to plant them to rice for more than two seasons.  At the end of this time, they may be used for camotes (Convolvulus batatas), sugar-cane, or cotton, but in the majority of cases they are allowed to lie unused for several seasons, when the grass or undergrowth is again removed and the fields replanted.