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Finally a large section of the sementera is prepared, and the toilers form in line abreast and slowly tread back and forth over the plat, making the bed soft and smooth beneath the water for the transplanting. It is a delightful picture in the soil-turning season to see the acres of terraces covered by groups of toilers, relieving their labors with almost constant song.
The purport of the most common soil-turning song is this: "It is hard work to turn the soil, but eating the rice is good." The song continues while the implements are withdrawn from the earth and jabbed in again in a new place, while the syllable pronounced at that instant is also noticeably jabbed into the air.
It is the soil-turning stick, used by both men and women in turning the earth in all irrigated sementeras for rice and camotes. It is also employed in digging around and prying out rocks to be removed from sementeras or needed for walls. It is spade, plow, pickax, and crowbar.
This is the tool used in felling and cutting up all trees, and in getting out and dressing all timbers and boards. It is the sole carpenter tool, unless the man by chance possess a bolo. There are no metal agricultural implements in common use. As was noted earlier in the chapter, the soil-turning stick and the woman's camote stick are now and then shod with iron, but they are rare.
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