What term describes garden cultivation that was important to the Mississippian culture?

• A. Agriculture
• B. Horticulture
• C. Irrigation
• D. Domestication

Answer: (B)

Horticulture means growing crops in gardens or small plots near the home, usually by hand. For the Mississippian culture, people lived in villages with mound centers and kept garden plots to supplement their staple foods, focusing on crops tended close to where they lived. This garden-based cultivation fits the idea of horticulture, as opposed to farming on large fields.

Agriculture, by contrast, refers to large-scale farming of fields, often with more extensive labor and longer-term planning. Irrigation is about supplying water to crops, which isn’t the defining feature of Mississippian garden practice. Domestication is the process of altering wild plants or animals to be more useful, not the specific act of tending garden plots. So the term that best describes their garden cultivation is horticulture.