This lesson about the training and care of cattle was one of the first
and most necessary parts of their new education. As shepherds they
knew all about sheep and goats; and this knowledge was still valuable,
for on many a Canaanite hillside goats could thrive where no other
animal could live. But as farmers they must also raise cattle, not
only because of the milk, and the beef, but because they needed the
oxen to draw their carts and plows and harrows. Oxen and asses, not
horses, were the work animals of the farmers of those days. Oxen
were more powerful than asses. Horses were seldom seen at all. They
were used chiefly in war by the great military emperors of Egypt and
Assyria.

+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| [Illustration: EGYPTIAN PLOWING |
| (Similar to Hebrew Method.)] |
| |
| [Illustration: EGYPTIANS THRESHING AND WINNOWING |
| (Hebrews used same methods.)] |
| |
| [Illustration: EGYPTIAN OR HEBREW THRESHING FLOOR] |
| |
| Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Foundation |
| Fund. |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+

=Driving an ox team.=--So we can imagine the young Canaanites of those
days watching a Hebrew farmer taking his first lesson with a team of
oxen. There was a wooden yoke to lay on their necks; there was the
two-wheeled farm cart with its long tongue to be fastened to the yoke.
There was the goad, a long pole with a sharp point, to stick into the