Most palay is stored in the granaries in the small bunches tied at harvest.  The a-lang’ is carefully closed again after each sementera crop has been put in.  There are granaries in Bontoc which have not been opened, it is said, in eight or more years, except to receive additional crops of palay, and yet the grain is as perfectly preserved as when first stored.  Some palay, especially that needed for consumption within a reasonable time, is stored in the upper part of the family dwelling.

Maize and millet are generally stored in the dwelling, in the second and third stories, since not enough of either is grown to fill an a-lang’, it is said.

Camotes are sometimes stored in the granary after the harvest of the irrigated fields.  Often they are put away in the kubkub, the two compartments at either end of the sleeping room on the ground floor of the dwelling.  At other times one sees bushels of camotes put away on the earth under the broad bench extending the full length of the dwelling.  In the poorer class of dwellings the camotes are frequently dumped in a corner.

Beans are dried and shelled before storing and are set away in a covered basket, usually in the upper part of the dwelling.  Only one or two cargoes are grown by each family, so little space is needed for storage.

Since rice is the staple food and may be preserved almost indefinitely. the Igorot has developed a means and place to care for it.  Maize and millet, while probably capable of as long preservation, are generally not grown in sufficient quantity to require more storage space than the upper part of the dwelling affords.  The Igorot has not developed a way to preserve his camotes long after harvest; they are readily perishable, consequently no place has been differentiated as a storehouse.

Expense and profit

An irrigated sementera 60 by 100 feet, having 6,000 square feet of surface, is valued at two carabaos, or, in money, about 100 pesos.  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.