Augustine of Hippo : GRAIN SCARCITY: ABUNDANCE OF PASTURES. — And Joseph said to them, "Bring your cattle and I will give you food in exchange for your cattle, if money is lacking ." One may ask, if Joseph gathered food to feed the men, how did he keep the livestock in the midst of so great a scarcity? And the question is justified especially when the brothers of Joseph had said to Pharaoh: For there is no pasture for the cattle of your servants, for there is a great famine in the land of Canaan . And they had added that they had come there precisely because of that lack of pasture. If, therefore, because of this famine the pastures in the land of Canaan were lacking, why had the pastures not been lacking in Egypt, if that famine had spread everywhere? Could pastures not be lacking in many marshy regions of Egypt, as those who know those places say, even if there is a famine of wheat, since these pastures usually appear after the floods of the Nile? It is said that those marshy regions produce pastures, the more fertile the less the Nile water rises. [ — QUESTIONS ON GENESIS, Q. 159 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)