In the sierra a piece of land may yield good crops for three years in succession without manure, but in the broad mountain valleys and on the mesas a family can use the same field year after year for twenty or thirty seasons.  On the other hand, down in the barrancas, a field cannot be used more than two years in succession, because the corn-plants in that time are already suffocated with weeds.  The planting is done from the middle of April to the first week in July, and the harvest begins about the first week in October and lasts until the beginning of December.

Communal principles prevail in clearing the fields, in ploughing—­each furrow in a field is ploughed by a different man—­in corn planting, in hoeing, weeding, harvesting, gathering wood for feasts, in fishing and in hunting.

If a man wants to have his field attended to, the first thing he has to do is to prepare a good quantity of the national stimulant, a kind of beer called tesvino.  The more of this he has, the larger the piece of land he can cultivate, for the only payment his helpers expect and receive is tesvino.

The master of the house and his sons always do first one day’s work alone, before their friends and neighbours come to help them.  Then they begin in earnest to clear the field of stones, carrying them in their arms or blankets, and cut down the brushwood.  Tesvino is brought out into the field, and iskiate, and the men, all very much under the influence of the liquor, work with the animation of a heap of disturbed ants.

When the work of hoeing and weeding is finished, the workers seize the master of the field, and, tying his arms crosswise behind him, load all the implements, that is to say, the hoes, upon his back, fastening them with ropes.  Then they form two single columns, the landlord in the middle between them, and all facing the house.  Thus they start homeward.  Simultaneously the two men at the heads of the columns begin to run rapidly forward some thirty yards, cross each other, then turn back, run along the two columns, cross each other again at the rear and take their places each at the end of his row.  As they pass each other ahead and ill the rear of the columns they beat their mouths with the hollow of their hands and yell.  As soon as they reach their places at the foot, the next pair in front of the columns starts off, running in the same way, and thus pair after pair performs the tour, the procession all the time advancing toward the house.

A short distance in front of it they come to a halt, and are met by two young men who carry red handkerchiefs tied to sticks like flags.  The father of the family, still tied up and loaded with the hoes, steps forward alone and kneels down in front of his house-door.  The flag-bearers wave their banners over him, and the women of the household come out and kneel on their left knees, first toward the east, and after a little while toward each of the other cardinal points, west, south, and north.