They engage in the cultivation of the soil, and make extensive plantations of maize, which supply them not only with their ordinary food but also with goodly profits by selling it to the beach villages, thus obtaining in exchange many articles which they do not possess in the woods, salt being the chief. Since they do not count by months or by years, but by harvests, in order to know the time for their sowing they pay attention to the aspect of the sky. Accordingly, when they see certain constellations in the firmament which they designate by very curious and completely arbitrary names, since they know that they are, for example, those which precede the rainy season, they hasten to burn their trees and prepare the ground for sowing. I have seen the plow used for the cultivation of the soil, one somewhat different from those of España. He who guides it is never without his adze with which to cut the roots which he finds as the plow passes. For the finer labor, they use a small hoe with a short curved handle. Scarcely will one find a house of Buquidnons where there are not one or at times more small mills for grinding maize. They are made of two very hard stone cylinders. The inner is fixed on a wooden upright, while the upper is movable, and has an orifice in its center through which the maize is poured. The circular movement by which the grain is crushed is produced by a handle securely fastened to one side of the movable cylinder. An apparatus which I saw in Jasaán for removing cotton seed appeared very ingenious to me. It consists in the special gearing of the screws [engrenaje particular de las roscas] of two cylinders. Those cylinders being very close together allow the filaments of cotton to pass but not the seeds, which are as large as small peas. The motion is produced by means of a crank which is the continuation of the upper cylinder. The whole apparatus is wooden, but is operated with sufficient regularity although with some discomfort to the one operating it. Not a little time is given by the Monteses to the harvesting of abacá for they are not ignorant of the high price of that filament, in commerce. But to many of them their dream proves very contrary, for they often meet with Chinese traders, cunning as are no others, who exploit them by deceiving them in the price and weight, and what is worse, fill them with alcohol, by enticing them to drink deeply. In fact after the unfortunate fellows have used all the week in transacting the business they again return to their woods with the after effects of their intoxication, without abacá, without money, with some miserable gewgaws perhaps and a mind irritated by the deceit of which they were the victims. It would be advisable to impose an efficacious corrective on those exploiters of an evil class, and worse tricks, in favor of the poor Monteses. When the palay is harvested, on rising and before undertaking the ordinary labors, until daybreak,