Agriculture is an art which has ever been a source both of the necessaries and conveniences of life. Moses, following the example of the Egyptians, made it the basis of the state. Accordingly, he apportioned to every citizen a certain quantity of land, and gave him, not only the right of tilling it himself, but also of transmitting it to his heirs. The custom of marking the boundaries of lands by stones, which had prevailed in earlier times, he perpetuated by an express law; and against him who removed them without authority a curse was denounced. Joshua divided the whole country, of which he had taken possession, among the individual Hebrews, running it out with the aid of a “measuring line.”

The occupation of the husbandman was held in honor, not only for the profits it brought, but from its being supported and protected by the fundamental laws of the State; security being an indispensable element of human progress. All who were not set apart for sacred duties, as the priests and levites, were regarded by the laws, and were, in fact, agriculturalists. It is true that the rich and the noble did not place themselves on a level with their inferiors; but none were so distinguished as to disdain the culture of the soil. Elisha the son of Shaphat was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen when Elijah passed by and cast his mantle upon him. Of Uzziah, king of Judah, it was said—“He loved husbandry.” And it became natural to speak of a man, engaging in the highest and noblest service, as “putting his hand to the plough.”

This implement was at first extremely simple, the turning up of the soil being effected by means of sharp sticks. The plough, strictly so called, as observed by many recent travelers, is generally a branch, or small tree, cut below the bifurcation; the share is of wood, and the point of iron. As the husbandman guides the plough, he carries a rod, armed at the extremity with a sharp piece of iron, with which he clears away the weeds from the share of his implement, or goads his oxen. So light is the whole apparatus, that he has to press hardly on it in the upturning of the soil; and he often carries his plough home on his shoulder on returning from the fields at night. The only harrow seems to have been a thick clump of wood, borne down by a weight, or a man sitting upon it, and drawn by oxen over the ploughed field: the same which the Egyptians use at the present time. In this way the turfs were, and still are, broken in pieces, and the fields leveled.

In harvest, the Hebrews used the sickle, so that the stubble remained in the earth. The crops, when bound in bundles, were conveyed by hand, on beasts of burden, or in wagons, to the threshing-floor. This was in some elevated part of the field, and was nothing more than a circular space thirty or forty paces in diameter, where the ground had been leveled and beaten down. At first the grain was thrashed with sticks; but afterward this mode was adopted only in respect to the lesser kinds of grain, and in beating out small quantities. At a later period, it was trodden out by the hoofs of oxen, as it is in the East to this day.

These allusions to agricultural pursuits recall to the mind the words of the prophet—

Isaiah mentions four ways of threshing: the staff or flail, which was used for the smaller seeds; the drag, formed of strong planks, the lower part of which was made rough with stones or iron; the cart, having wheels furnished with iron edges or teeth; and the feet of oxen driven over the corn when laid on the floor. The grain was winnowed by being thrown against the wind with a shovel.

The traditions of ancient times ascribe many of its arts to the visions and instructions of superior beings. Among these stands forth with special prominence the legend of “the fire-bringing Prometheus,” as depicted by Æschylus with extraordinary power. He appears chained to the mountains of Caucasus; and why is he thus doomed to suffering? For disobedience to the power that rules the world, in bestowing fire on the human race. “Laboring for the people,” and intent on giving them “all-working fire,” it is to restrain him from “his man-loving turn of mind,” that he is cast forth from society, and that the far-distant and barren rock is his inexorable destiny.

How man received the gift of fire we have no means of knowing. It is a Moslem fable that the angel Gabriel brought it to our first parents. Poetry says that the winds blew through the grove, that two trees became ignited from continued attrition, and that Adam beholding the lighted copse fled, turned back, caught the glow of the flame, and then tried various means to obtain it. Again, it tells us that a flint-shaft, aimed at a beast, ground against a rock, and elicited sparks of fire, which led Adam to rub stones together over dry leaves, while Eve gently cherished the kindling flame. More than one ancient people ascribe it to the rubbing of two pieces of wood together, a practice still adopted among barbarous tribes. But however this might be, fire must have been possessed in earliest times for the preparation of human food, as well as for the practice of those arts which are ascribable to the fatherhood of Tubal-Cain.

The presence of the metals, and particularly iron, must have become, in various ways, too obvious to allow the art of smelting the ores to have remained long undiscovered. The detection of virgin fragments, or the accidental effect of fires on the more fusible ores, accounts at once for the strange fictions which existed among the ancients on this subject, especially that of the accidental conflagration of a forest, and the consequent fluxion of some of the metal, from ores lying exposed on, or near the surface. It is a natural conjecture, that in a little time after the deluge, and long before the earth could have been peopled by the posterity of Noah, a large part of it must have become covered with wood. Its removal from many spots would, therefore, be indispensable. Now, the most obvious method of clearing any space from wood is the setting it on fire: and as in the most mineral countries there are veins of metallic ores lying contiguous to the surface of the earth, these being fused while the woods growing over them were burning, might have suggested the first idea of the process of smelting. To adopt a poet’s notion—

Nor is this merely a poetic fiction: it is sustained by the testimony of many ancient historians, who speak of silver and other metals being melted out of the earth, during the burning of the woods on the lofty Alps and Pyrenees. A similar circumstance is said to have happened at Croatia, not two centuries ago. A large mass of mixed metal, composed of copper, iron, tin, and silver, was fluxed during the conflagration of a wood which was accidentally set on fire.

The structure and use of the bellows may be traced to a very remote period. Rosellini exhibits it, as it was employed in ancient Thebes. Men appear heating a vessel over a charcoal fire, to each side of which is applied a pair of bellows worked by the feet, each operator standing upon and pressing them alternately, while he pulls up the exhausted skin by a string which he holds in his hand. In one representation, the man has left the bellows, which are raised as if full of air, and imply a knowledge of the valve. The common bellows, made of two boards joined together by a piece of leather, was known very early to the Greeks. How serviceable this machine would be in the practice of the arts will be at once perceptible.

Wool, in its native whiteness, was peculiarly suited for clothing to the circumstances of the Israelites, whose economy required so many sprinklings and cleansings. This substance was used for garments, both by those of humbler and of higher grade, until accompanied or superseded by other fabrics.

Among the wild flowers of our rural districts, the eye is sometimes attracted—for example—by the blue flowers of the flax-plant. This vegetable product is so little affected by soil and climate, that one species, with all its characteristics unaltered, flourishes in the cold as well as the temperate regions of the globe. There is scarcely a plant, not even excepting the corn-plants, which can be regarded as of more service to mankind than the flax. Its free use in ancient Egypt is abundantly proved, while many representations are extant of the various processes through which it passed. One of these is found in a very ancient tomb at Beni Hassan, in Middle Egypt. On the right is seen a boiler, an irregularly-shaped vessel. The hieroglyphic inscription means, “The boiling of the knot, bundle of flax.” The three men who complete the picture are beating the flax-stalks, thus prepared, with wooden mallets, in order to deprive it of its outer skin. The hieroglyphic inscription above reads, “Pickling, or hackling the thread of the knot of flax.”

In some of the ancient statues, Minerva is represented with a distaff, to intimate that she taught our progenitors the art of spinning. The Egyptians ascribe this gift to Isis; and the Mohammedans to a son of Japhet. In all countries, from the earliest times, the distaff was accompanied by the spindle. The material employed—being duly prepared—was rolled into a ball, loose enough for the fibres to be easily drawn out by the hands of the spinner. Into the ball the upper part of the distaff was thrust, while the lower was held in the left hand under the left arm, so as to be most convenient for the process. The fibres were drawn out, and at the same time spirally twisted, chiefly by the fore-finger and thumb of the right hand, and the thread so produced was wound on the spindle. The spindle was a stick ten or twelve inches long, having at the top a slit or catch in which to fix the thread, so that the weight of the spindle might continually carry down the thread as it was formed. Its lower extremity was inserted into a small wheel of wood, stone, or metal, the use of which was to keep the spindle more steady, and to promote its rotation: for the spinner, who was commonly a female, every now and then twirled round the spindle with her right hand, so as to twist the thread still more completely; and, whenever—by its continual prolongation—it let down the spindle to the ground, she took it out of the slit, wound it upon the spindle, and having replaced the thread in the slit, drew out and twisted another length. The Arab women twirl the spindle in the same manner to this day. A still simpler process is passed through by the women of the Tartar tribes. They use a reel, which is connected with some silk, cotton, or wool, fastened at the girdle. This reel is spun round and let fall, and as it goes toward the ground it spins out the thread; when it approaches the ground it is taken up, the thread is wound around the reel, which is then set spinning again, and so on, till it has acquired as much thread as it can carry. This may seem very slow work, but habit gives a dexterity of manipulation which renders it less so than would be ordinarily supposed.

In ancient Egypt great skill must have been obtained in spinning. The threads used for nets, for instance, were remarkable for their fineness. Pliny says, so delicate were some of them that a net could pass through a ring, and a single person could carry a sufficient number of nets to surround a whole wood. He tells us that one of the governors of Egypt had some of these nets, each string of which contained 150 threads; and that the Rhodians preserved to his day, in the Temple of Minerva, the remains of a linen corslet, presented to them by Amasis, king of Egypt, the threads of which were individually composed of 365 fibres.

The tomb at Beni Hassan, already referred to, supplies a representation of ancient weaving. The warp is strained vertically on a frame, which seems to be attached by wooden tenons to the wall or roof of the dwelling. Beneath, the roller appears on which the web is wound. Two females, crouching in a posture not uncommon in the East, are at work upon it. The alternate threads of the warp are stretched apart by means of two smooth sticks, one end of which is held by each worker. The woof was then passed by the hand from one to the other. The shuttle does not appear to have been known at that time. The beam was introduced between the threads, perhaps fixed at one end by a slight metal catch; and, when thus fastened, the leverage would enable another woman to press the woof home with considerable force. The beam must have been withdrawn and re-inserted at every turn of the woof. Exceedingly clumsy as this instrument was, yet an extremely beautiful cloth was produced by it.

The Hebrew loom was most probably the counterpart of those still observed by our Eastern travelers. One of them noticed its use in Jerusalem, where the worsted was not worked in, but woven into the piece, and the pattern of the weaving changed, so that the color of the thread was completely thrown out, forming a triple fringe, through which the weft could not be seen. “In two of our specimens,” says Mr. Wilde, “we find twelve thick threads crossing the piece, and the tassels tied exactly as they are at the end of a piece of modern Irish linen. But the slipping of the weft is prevented by a curious process, performed by tying the threads of the warp together, so that each is secured to the thread at each side of it. This process forms a slight ridge at the end of the piece, and is rather ornamental. This fringe appears to be alluded to in that passage of Scripture, where the Israelites were directed to make fringes in the borders of their garments, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribbon of blue. I have seen a species of mummy-cloth in Egypt corresponding to this description precisely. Such was, probably, ‘the hem of the garment.’”^[1]

Many of the Egyptian stuffs presented various patterns worked in colors by the loom, independently of those produced by the dyeing or printing process, and so richly composed, that they vied with cloths embroidered by the needle. The art of embroidering was commonly practiced by that people. The Israelites, when in the wilderness, used the skill which they acquired in their captivity, for they made a rich “hanging for the door of the tent, of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twisted linen wrought with needlework;” “a coat of fine linen” was embroidered for Aaron; and his girdle was “of fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, of needlework.”

In connection with these manufactures of different kinds there is a process of great interest; it is that of bleaching: for cloth washed and exposed to the sun and air assume an unwonted whiteness. We are in ignorance as to the origin of this process; but, in some way or other, a certain degree of putrid fermentation was observed to carry off coloring matter from vegetable fibres. The practice must therefore have arisen of macerating cloth in water mixed with putrescent animal matter, which has continued to the present day from the earliest times. The secret was also found out by many nations of antiquity, that natron, the nitre of Scripture, combined with and carried off the coloring matter with which cloth is stained; and the substance is still used for the same purpose. According to Pliny, the ancient Gauls knew the use of a lixivium formed from the ashes of burnt vegetables as a detergent, and also how to combine it with oil so as to form a soap. In one of the tombs of Egypt we have a representation, as the hieroglyphic inscription denotes, of the washing or fulling of cloth. One man is seen rubbing the fabric in a vessel containing some liquid, and another is shaking it out, preparing it for the next process, which is often depicted—its being well wrung out, stretched lengthwise, and fully exposed to the air.

Another process of great importance is that of dyeing. It is based on the natural attractiveness of color. How often is the infant’s eye first caught by some bright hue! The blue sky and the verdant carpet of nature have a loveliness for all; while these, with the roseate tints of the morning, the golden sheen of noon, and the rich, empurpled dyes of evening, have furnished epithets freely lavished on the topics they have adorned, by the poets of every age. Even Herodotus says of a nation on the borders of the Caspian—“They have trees whose leaves possess a most singular property; they beat them to powder, and then steep them in water: this forms a dye, with which they paint on their garments figures of animals. The impression is so very strong that it cannot be washed out: it appears to be interwoven with the cloth, and wears as long as the garment.” Strabo, in his account of the Indians, mentions on the authority of Nearchus the various and beautiful dyes with which their cloths were figured. Pliny says of the Egyptians, that they began by painting on white cloth with certain drugs, which in themselves possessed no color, but had the property of attracting or absorbing coloring matters. That these cloths were afterward immersed in a heated dyeing liquor of a uniform color, and yet when removed from it soon after, they were found to be stained with indelible colors, differing from one another according to the nature of the drugs that had been applied to different parts of the stuff.

Purple is well known to have been a color of high repute. Moses, under Divine instruction, used purple stuffs for the furniture of the tabernacle and the dress of the high-priest. Purple raiment was worn by the kings of Midian; and a garment of fine linen and purple was given to a favorite by the Monarch Ahasuerus, whose palace was furnished with curtains of this color, on a pavement of red, and blue, and white marble. The Jews made a decree that Simon should wear purple and gold, in token that he was their chief magistrate; and that none of the people should wear purple or a buckle of gold, without his express permission. And Homer thus describes a king—

There is a story that the celebrated Tyrian dye was discovered by accident. A dog having broken one of the shells of the rock-whelk, stained his mouth with the color it contains, and thus led to the examination of this mollusc. It was then found that near to the head, and lying in a little furrow, is a white vein, yielding the beautiful purple tint which was long so highly esteemed.

It might be supposed that such processes as that of dyeing could only be conducted in an advanced state of society; but to this it is not exclusively confined. There is no doubt that, even during the captivity in Egypt, the Israelitish women became acquainted with them. For scarcely had they entered the wilderness than we hear that “the wise-hearted among them” did not only “spin with their hands,” but “brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet,” as well as “of fine linen.”

We even find another process analogous to dyeing, in circumstances in which we should not expect it to be discovered. In some of the islands of the South Sea elegant small ferns grow in abundance, and with these the native women impress figures, in divers colors, upon their cloth—literally, a method of printing, which is but one remove below the boasted invention of the Chinese, by means of engraven blocks, before the art was discovered in Europe. Its resemblance to calico printing is even more striking. For the old method, still continued for certain parts of the work, were by blocks of sycamore, on the surface of which the pattern was cut in relief, in the common method of wood engraving.

Vessels to hold water would be an early requirement of the human race. The shells of some vegetable productions, as those of gourds and the larger kinds of nuts, would readily occur to the mind as adapted to this purpose. The skins of animals taken in the chase would form another resource. The bowls and dishes of the common Arabs are, and have been, made of wood; but, for their production, some tools must be possessed, as well as some dexterity in their use. It is a singular practice of some tribes to cast stones made hot into the fluids contained in wooden bowls, in order to raise their temperature; but the discovery that certain substances could be made to resist the action of fire would at once cause them to have the preference. Who made the discovery—the brickmaker or the potter—we have no means of knowing.

The art of the potter was especially necessary at an early period, from the scarcity of fuel in some parts of the East. Hence we are told of people “who make in their tents a hole about a foot and a half deep, wherein they put their earthen pipkins or pots, with the meat within, closed up, so that they are in the turf above the middle. Three-fourth parts thereof they lay about with stones, and the fourth part of which is left open, through which they throw in their dried dung, which burns immediately, and gives so great a heat, that the pot groweth so hot as if it had stood in the middle of a lighted coal-heap; so that they boil their meat with a little fire, quicker than we do ours with a great one on our hearths.” As the Israelites must have had as much occasion to be sparing of their fuel as any people, and especially while journeying in the wilderness, it has been supposed that they must have had some such practice. It is certain that we read in the Levitical law of “ranges of pots,” thus showing their use at that period. It became still more familiar in after times.

“I went down,” says the Prophet Jeremiah, “to the potter’s house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheels.” The name of the inventor of this simple, yet effective machine, has been lost for ages, if indeed it was ever made known. It consists merely of two wheels or round plates placed horizontally, to which a rotary motion is given. If, then, on the upper one be heaped a mass of clay, it is evident that a tendency to a centrifugal motion will be given to it, which will greatly facilitate the action of the potter’s fingers, in forming out of the rude lump whatever vessel he pleases. With his thumbs separated from the fingers, and held on the clay as it revolves, the rapid motion will enable him readily to mould a hollow vessel.

Of earthenware, jars and drinking-vessels were chiefly made; and, it is probable, from the unvarying character of Eastern customs, that they had the same shapes as those still in use. Vessels formed of clay hardened by the sun, of a globular shape, and large at the mouth, not unlike the vitriol-bottles used in this country, but somewhat smaller, have been observed by modern travelers as borne by females going down to the well to fetch water; while their resemblance to the vessels used at the marriage of Cana in Galilee was exceedingly interesting.

In Egypt and Western Asia the inhabitants have in common use vessels of porous clay, lightly baked, and rather thin in proportion to the size of the vessels. The water they hold constantly oozes through the minute pores of the vessel, forming a thick dew or moisture on the outer surface, the rapid evaporation of which reduces the temperature of the vessel and of the water also much below that of the atmosphere, so that the inhabitants enjoy a perfectly cool and refreshing draught. The vessel forms, at the same time, a most effectual filter. The work of the potter continues to be, as it was, extensive in the East. The people are accustomed to break their earthen vessels when they become defiled, just as they were required to do under the Levitical law.