Question

Because nonindustrial economies can have features of both horticulture and agriculture, it is useful to discuss cultivators as being arranged along a cultivation continuum. Which of the following generally occurs in moving toward the more intensive end of the cultivating continuum?
(A) increased leisure time
(B) improved overall health status of the population
(C) increased egalitarianism
(D) increasing economic specialization
(E) longer fallow periods

Answer 1

Answer:

(D) increasing economic specialization.

Explanation:

On a cultivation continuum we can appreciate the many ways in which people can conduct agriculture and horticulture. On one end of the spectrum, we find the most primitive ways of conducting such practices. These are usually small-scale gardens with a variety of crops that are mostly used for subsistence. However, as we move towards the other end of the spectrum, we see large-scale farming. Large farms and plantations appear, as well as cash crops (crops grown in order to be sold, not consumed by the farmers). Moreover, we start seeing increased economic specialization. Farmers begin to focus on a single crop, or even a single variety of crop. Trade also becomes more complex.