The agricultural land, small in size, lays on steep slopes, or on higher platforms, sometimes even on the flat bottom of the dolines. For this reason, everywhere there is a piece of arable land, there is a motzi household.

The motzi villages are very scattered. To the Motz, used to travel long distances, it does not come as a burden the fact that from his place to the “center” is a three hours trip.

In ANP, low intensity agriculture is practised up to an altitude of 1,200 m, any mechanisation being impossible. The cold climate only allows the cultivation of potatoes; sown barley and wheat risk not to ripe until the autumn hoarfrost.

On high summits, extended pastures allow cattle and sheep breeding. For the same purpose, all the surfaces improper to farming are used for hay-making.

But the richness of the Apuseni Mountains is constituted mainly by its spruce woods, with the local inhabitants, the Moţi, as the masters of timber processing. The cooper handicraft is passed on from father to son, beginning with the selection of wood for the staves, and up to the curdling of the barrels, coops and tugs. They are also masters in creating traditional tulnice (alphorns) and traditional handicraft.

With the same craftsmanship, the Moţi use wood in building their entire household. Traditional houses are built exclusively of wood, having a specific architecture. Being mainly positioned on slopes, and unable to dig into the rocky soil in order to obtain a horizontal foundation, the Moţi base the hill-side part of the house on the soil, whereas the valley-side part is based on pillars. By enclosing the space between the pillars, they gain space for animals or annexes. The front of the house always has a veranda, with pillars and arcades, sometimes sculpted. Specific to the traditional house is the high-pitched tall roof, made of shingle allowing the rapid sliding of snow. Charateristic for the region is also the stable: It is a cube of beams with a very high roof covered by spruce twigs and remainings from timber processing, which, over time, gets covered by a thick carpet of grass and moss.

The interior of the house is scanty but clean. The traditional Moţi do not buy furniture, they make their own pieces of furniture: table, chairs, benches and bed. The closet is not part of the furniture of the household, but replaced by a clothes-peg; the beds are specific and usually extendible.

Among the many traditions of the inhabitants of the Apuseni Mountains, it is important to mention the most specific one, the annual fairs. In these areas where trade is a typical activity, one can see the fairs especially on plateaus suitable for pasturing. In the mountains, the fairs take place only in the summertime, the grazing season. Such are the fairs on Găina Mountain or in Poiana Călineasa, or the periodical ones of the larger communes. The Motzi bring two-handled tubs, rakes, wooden pails, and various handicraft products, especially tulnice of very different sizes. The inhabitants near the Cris river bring fruits, vegetables, woven materials, ceramic objects typical to the areas surrounding Beiuş.

The most northern settlements from the “Ţara Moţilor” (Motzi country) are the hamlets of Ocoale (on the Scărişoara plateau), Sfoartea (on the Ordâncuşa valley) and of Casa de Piatră (on the Gârda Seacă valley). Further north, the mountain area is not permanently inhabited. It belongs to the inhabitants of the Beiuş depression, known as “Crişeni”. The Crişeni live at the mountain base, being emotionally tied to the fertile lands of the depression. That is why they use their part of the mountain only for pasturing, and the more accessible areas for hay-making. On the hay-fields, they build small huts inhabited only in summer during hay-making.