According to Herodotus, the Sarmatians and the Scoloti spoke the same language, but the Sarmatians spoke it badly. Beyond this remark and the statements about the masculine life of the Sarmatian women, he gives us no further information about this people. But he speaks at greater length about the Scoloti. The nature of the steppes which they possessed did not allow them to lead a more settled life than the Sarmatians. It is true that in the spring the herbage grows luxuriantly on these steppes, but it is soon parched by the glow of summer, and after a scanty second growth in the autumn it succumbs to the snow storms of the long winter. Thus the Scoloti were induced to lead a wandering pastoral life. Yet they had passed beyond the stage of a purely nomadic life, at least after the year 700 B.C. If, according to the legend of the Scoloti, a golden plough fell down from heaven for their forefathers, the story proves not only the knowledge of agriculture, but the high value placed upon it. The account of Herodotus, as well as later statements of the Greeks, show us that the Scoloti cultivated the land in the depressions at the mouths of their rivers sheltered by strips of forest from the north wind, on the lower course and at the mouths of the Borysthenes (Dnieper), the Hypanis (Bug), and the Tyras (Dniester). Here they sowed corn, millet, and hemp. At that time the plains of the Crimea also were reckoned as part of the corn land of Scythia; they must therefore have been protected by forests against the storms of the north.[480] The property of the Scoloti, with the exception of the tillers of the soil in these districts, consisted in herds of horses and cattle, and flocks of sheep, from the wool of which they prepared felt coverings; their food was cooked flesh.[481] Of wood there was such a scarcity that they could only use brush-wood for cooking; and if this was not to be had, they took the bones of animals for fuel. The men were mostly on horseback; the women and children lived in waggons yoked with oxen;[482] the waggon, provided with a cover of felt, was at the same time tent and house.[483] The clothing of the Scoloti consisted of skins; beside the upper garment of leather they had wide breeches of the same material. These garments, so astonishing to the Greeks, they wore, as Herodotus says, "on account of the cold," and in addition a girdle round the body, which they drew tight when they had had nothing to eat for a long time. The horse was the most important animal for the Scoloti; they lived in part on horse-flesh; they were fond of mare's milk, and the preparation of acidulated mare's milk (koumyss) was known to them.[484]