INTRODUCTION. 23 



The system of cotting was known and adopted by the Is- 

 raelites. After repelling the invasion of Sennacherib, Hez- 

 ekiah applied a portion of the spoil to works of public utility ; 

 he built " storehouses, for the increase of corn, and wine, 

 and oil, and stalls for all manner of beasts, and cotes for 

 flocks^ But, a commentator remarks, — " This has refer- 

 ence more to the inhabitants of considerable towns or cit- 

 ies than to the wandering shepherds." 



An intelligent writer in the English Annals of Agriculture 

 says, that " the ancients were so perfectly satisfied that a va- 

 riety of climate was absolutely necessary to the production 

 of fine wool, that those people whose situation admitted not 

 of any change, had recourse to art, — housing them from the 

 day to defend them from the too powerful rays of the sun, 

 and exposing them to the cold of night. This was prac- 

 tised by Hezekiah ; Columella informs us that the same 

 conveniences were adopted in Greece and Tarentum, and 

 there is a line in Milton's Lycidas confirming the custom 

 of their nocturnal exposure : — 



* Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.' " 



For a long period it has been customary to cott or shelter 

 sheep during the night, instead of the day, to protect them 

 from the ravages of wild beasts, from cold, and to preserve 

 their dung for manure. 



The Scriptures abound with passages which demonstrate 

 the art of weaving to have been well understood in the 

 primitive ages. Job says, " My days are swifter than the 

 weaver's shuttle." Moses alludes to those whom " God 

 had filled with wisdom of art to work all manner of work of 

 the engraver, and of the cunning workman, and of the em- 

 broiderer in blue and purple, in scarlet and in fine linen, 

 and of the weaver, even of those that devise cunning work." 



Some three hundred years before the escape of the Is- 

 raelites from Egypt, in the history of Joseph it is recorded 

 that he was decorated with a coat of many colors, being 

 not only proof that weaving was practised to a considerable 

 degree of perfection, but dyeing also. Solomon thus de- 

 scribes the good wife : — " She seeketh wool and flax, and 

 vvorketh willingly with her hands. Her household are 

 clothed with scarlet^ The foregoing, as well as following 

 passage, indicate also, that in every country where the 

 simplicity of manners and virtues of the female are uncon- 



