It is especially favorable for the farmers if mists prevail at night during the time just preceding the harvest. The moisture keeps the heads of the grain from becoming brittle and so allowing the kernels to rattle out too easily. Then, too, the work of reaping, hard at best, is much pleasanter if the cooler weather is on for a few days. It is commonly ordered that the farmers shall proceed to reap simultaneously, and it is often forbidden to go out to the fields to reap until all are ready. By this arrangement the assessment of the tax on the crop may be made with more uniformity and thieving is rendered difficult. In all these matters, requiring the regulating authority of recognized overseers, it is the so-called _ukhtiyarîyeh_, or as we should say, selectmen, the chiefs of the tribes, who decide questions from the day that the land was parcelled out to the feddâns until the crop is gathered. The beginning of the harvest is a time of merry singing and industrious work.[137] Women as well as men go to the fields[138] and often the babies are taken along in cradles. Some of the reapers sleep in the field. The barley harvest always precedes the wheat harvest by a few weeks.[139] In reaping, the stalks are grasped and cut low down with a sickle.[140] A bunch is tied with a straw and thrown into a heap to make a shock. The grain is carried to the threshing-floor by donkeys, mules or camels.[141] The animals have much hard work during this season. The threshing-floor is usually a smooth plot of ground near the edge of the village, beaten hard. Very often a natural rock floor may be utilized. At Baytîn (Bethel) the immense ancient pool, now dry, at the southwest of the village, makes an excellent threshing-floor. On the floor the grain is piled up in what look like huge walls, each family’s crop by itself.[142] Watchers sleep on the floor at night to prevent theft[143] and fire. When all is ready the families owning grain on the threshing-floor throw down circular beds of the shocks and drive the animals around upon it. In the middle highland country the hoofs of the animals are depended on alone as threshing instruments.[144] But in the north, and in some other sections, a sledge is drawn about by the animals. In the bottom of the sledge teeth of iron or stone are inserted, which tear the straw.[145] At Samaria we saw threshing being done with the sledge and animals on the third of May. In Râm Allâh, where they use animals only, and where the season is later, it may be observed in June and possibly in July. Even down on the plain between the Shephelah and Jaffa we saw the peasants at work on the thirtieth of June, sometimes with a camel and a donkey hitched together. The animals generally used are the plow cattle, but all animals available are liable to be drafted into the service. Horses, donkeys, cattle and mules are to be seen hitched together promiscuously.[146] The mouths of the animals