AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS.- Of late years much light has been thrown upon the agricultural operations and implements of ancient times, by the discovery of various representations on the sculptured monuments and painted tombs of Egypt. As these agree surprisingly with the notices in the Bible, and, indeed, differ little from what we find em ployed in Syria and Egypt, it is very safe to receive them as guides on the present subject (See Gosse's Assyria, p. 56o).
has always been a light and superficial operation in the East. At first, the ground was opened with pointed sticks ; then, a kind of hoe was employed ; and this, in many parts of the world, is still used as a substitute for the plough. But the plough was known in Egypt and Syria before the Hebrews became cultivators (Job. i. 14). In the East, however, it has always been a light and inartificial implement. At first, lighter plough used in Asia Minor and Syria, with but a single handle, and with different shares according to the work it has to execute.
The plough was drawn by oxen, which were sometimes urged by a scourge (Is. x. 26; Nahum iii. 2); but oftener by a long staff, furnished at one end with a flat piece of metal for clearing the plough, and at the other with a spike for goading the oxen. This ox-goad might be easily used as a spear (Judg. iii. 31; i Sam. xiii. 21). Sometimes men followed the plough with hoes to break the clods (Is. xxviii. 24) ; but in later times a kind of harrow was employed, which appears to have been then, as now, merely a thick block of wood pressed down by a weight, or by a man sitting on it and drawn over the ploughed field.
Sewing. —The ground, having been ploughed as soon as the autumnal rains had mollified the soil, was fit, by the end of October, to receive the seed ; and the sowing of wheat continued, in dif ferent situations, through November into Decem ber. Barley was not generally sown till January and February. The seed appears to have been sown and harrowed at the same time; although sometimes it was ploughed in by a cross furrow.
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Ploughing in the Egyptian paintings illustrate the Scriptures by chewing that in those soils which needed no previous preparation by the hoe (for breaking the clods) the sower followed the plough, holding in the left hand a basket of seed, which he scattered with the right hand, while another person filled a fresh basket. We also see
that the mode of sowing was what we call 'broad cast,' in which the seed is thrown loosely over the field (Mat, xiii. 3-S). In Egypt, when the levels were low, and the water had continued long upon the land, they often dispensed with the plough altogether ; and probably, like the present inhabit ants, broke up the ground with hoes, or simply dragged the moist mud with bushes after the seed had been thrown upon the surface. To this cultivation without ploughing Moses probably alludes (Deut. xi. o), when he tells the Hebrews that the land to which they were going was not like the land of Egypt, where they `sowed their seed and watered it with their foot as a garden of herbs.' It seems, however, that even in Syria, in sandy soils, they sow without ploughing, and then plough down the seed (Russell's N. H. of Aleppo, i. 73, etc.) It does not appear that any instru ment resembling our harrow was known ; the word rendered to harrow, in Job xxxix. 10, means literally to break the clods, and is so rendered in Is. xxviii. 24 ; Hos. x. 1 i ; and for this purpose the means used have been already indicated. The passage in Job, however, is important. It shews that this breaking of the clods was not always by the hand, but that some kind of instrument was drawn by an animal over the ploughed field, most probably the rough log which is still in use.
has been already mentioned that the time of the wheat harvest in Palestine varies, in different situations, from early in May to late in June ; and that the barley harvest is about a fort night earlier than that of wheat. Among the Israelites, as with all other people, the harvest was a season of joy, and as such is more than once alluded to in Scripture (Ps. cxxvi. 5 ; Is. ix. 3).