Floor

FLOOR for threshing Corn, or Threshing -Floor. There is frequent mention of it in Scripture. These were places in the country open to the air, wherein the corn was threshed either by using sledges, or with flails, or with horses or bullocks feet, they being made to run round upon the sheaves, set near to one another with the ears uppermost. The old Authors who have written upon Agriculture, shew us exactly the manner wherein these Floors were made. The lees of oil were mixed with clay, and when the clay was well soaked, it was beaten, and made smooth. When it was dry, neither rats nor ants could penetrate it; no weed would grow upon it, nor any water enter it, and make it muddy. When the corn was threshed, and mingled with the straw broken in pieces and beat small, they waited for the rising of the wind in the evening, and then threw it all in the air with shovels: the corn fell down again, and the chaff was dispersed and carried away by the wind. It may be of some use to have an idea of these sorts of things, which are very different from what we see practised in our own countries, in order to understand the allusions which are frequently made to them in Scripture.

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