The Trench Farms of the Philippines 



Notwithstanding the fact that rice grows best in valleys where the soil is rich and 

 where it is kept flooded almost continuously until the grain matures, the Filipinos, 

 who are as dependent upon rice as are the Japanese and Chinese, have succeeded 

 in growing it upon mountainsides. There is of course a variety called "upland 

 rice," which requires less water than that grown in the valleys, but even this is 

 grown in marshy soil, kept wet by a trench system which holds back the rain and 

 the irrigating streams preventing the water from flowing down the mountain and 

 holding it in grooves in which the rice is planted. Huge water buffaloes are used 

 to drag the plows and harrows through the mud. Sometimes these animals are 

 blindfolded and made to turn wheels which elevate the water from the streams to 

 the trench-fields. After the rice sprouts are set out, the water must be let off from 

 time to time to permit weeding and cultivation, but it never destroys the ledges 



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