2-979-732 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Planting Rice in Manilla, [Philippines], 1857. 'The planting of rice has begun. When the rice has grown to a certain height, they unplant it, bind the small bundles together, which they put into the earth (if you can call a muddy bed covered with water earth) at equal distances...There is always a little table with wisps of straw to tie up these same bundles. The women leave off their petticoats, and only wear the "tapis," as it is wet in the fields. In the foreground is a sledge made of bamboo - they are generally used instead of carts. An old buffalo is ploughing in the most beautiful bluish mud...These paddy fields are surrounded by ridges of earth to keep in the water, and let it flow gently into the next field, which is lower than the first. Each field goes down like small terraces or steps, and in that way one little stream does for any quantity of irrigation'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.