The principal instrument used in farming was the =plough= 𓍁, the share of which was made of a piece of wood tied to a long pole; at the other end of the pole was fixed a bar, which was made fast to the horns of the cows which drew the plough. This primitive instrument was little more than a stout stake tied to a pole which was drawn over the ground, and made a very shallow furrow. The stiff Nile mud was further broken up by the =hoe= 𓌸, of which examples may be seen in the Wall-case No. 102 in the Third Egyptian Room (No. 281, etc.). As soon as the fields were ready to receive the seed, the =sowing= took place, and when the seed had been cast into the furrows it was trodden in by the animals on the farm being driven over it. The sowing was done by hand, and no drill appears to have been used. The fields were watered either by allowing the water to flow from a large basin or reservoir on to them, or by machines which lifted the water from the canal to their level, or from the Nile itself. The commonest water-raising machine resembled the modern =shâdûf=, which was worked by one or two men. Two stout stakes were driven firmly into the ground at the edge of the stream, and between them was tied a long pole, heavily weighted with a mass of mud or stone at one end. To the end of the longer half of the pole a rope and a leather bucket were tied. The labourer drew the pole down until the bucket entered the stream, and the weight of the counterpoise at the other end helped him to raise the water to the surface of the field, where he poured it into the channel leading to the growing crop. At the =harvest= the crops were cut with the small =sickle= 𓌳 (see Table-case K in Third Egyptian Room, Nos. 1-4), which in primitive times was made of flint or a series of flints set in a wooden frame [glyph not in Unicode], and in later times of iron or bronze. The wheat or barley was tied up into small bundles by the reapers, and carried to the =threshing floor=, where the grain was trodden out by animals—donkeys, swine, etc. The threshing floor, as we may see from the wall paintings and pictures on papyri, was circular in form, and its edges were raised, 𓻂, thus preventing the animals, as they ran round and round in it, from scattering the grain with their feet. The operations of ploughing, reaping, and =treading out the corn= are well illustrated by the Vignette No. 35, from the Ani Papyrus. (See Standard-case G in the Third Egyptian Room.) When the grain had been trodden out, it was thrown up by hand into heaps, the wind blowing away the chaff whilst it was in the air. It was next carried in baskets, or bags, to the store or granary, which was usually near the house. Here it was either piled up in heaps on mud stands with raised edges 𓊚, or poured into large bins built in the walls along a rectangular courtyard. (See the models of granaries in Standard-case C in the Fourth Egyptian Room.)