Yes, American indians planted (at least) corn. They also cleared areas
of underbrush using fire and cleared the overstory of leaves by girdling
trees a year ahead of intended use. The girdling killed the trees and
allowed planting around them without having to actually take down the
trees. Along the coast corn was typically planted with a small piece of
fish as fertilizer. Early English settlers in New England also assumed
that the missing underbrush was a natural condition.
Chuck Norcutt
On 11/22/2010 5:38 PM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> Did some groups practice agriculture? Australian aborigines practiced
> 'firestick farming' but the reasons were more subtle. They would burn
> a camp area before moving on - this had the effect of clearing the
> camp and the scrub around it, encouraging grass growth. When they
> returned the following season, game had moved in to feed on the new
> grass and so hunting was improved. This was a critical mistake made
> by the first European settlers at Sydney Cove who assumed that the
> grasslands they saw were a natural condition and that fires were a
> danger to be avoided. Within a couple of years the scrub had returned
> and they almost starved. Of course they didn't bother to examine the
> practice of the indigenes and simply assumed that they knew better.
> And of course the local tribes had no understanding of domestic
> animals and so treated them as unexpected game. It all ended in
> tears. Andrew Fildes afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
> On 23/11/2010, at 2:45 AM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>
>> But I should have been even more specific since my source really
>> only discusses land "transactions" in Massachusetts and perhaps
>> Connecticut. But I would expect it to be mostly true down the east
>> coast. Indians that lived near the coast moved seasonally between
>> beach areas (for fishing and shell fish), fire cleared lands (for
>> agriculture) and more forested areas (for hunting).
>
--
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