Native Americans developed a number of domesticated crop
plants; corn, squash, beans, amaranth, and sunflowers are probably the best known
today.
In the Eastern Woodland areas, corn was a major
crop. Trees were cleared either by controlled burning or by girdling, a process in which
one removes a strip of bark all the way around the trunk, which kills the tree. There is
also some evidence that river floodplains were used for agriculture in the northeast.
Intercropping was commonly practiced in the southeast. The "three sisters" planting
tradition of growing corn, beans, and squash together is an example of this
method.
In the southwest the staple crops were similar, but
farmers concentrated on developing fast-maturing varieties that needed less water.
Extensive networks of irrigation ditches were developed to make the most of the
available water.
In the Pacific northwest we have less
evidence of native agriculture. It seems likely that people living there got most of
their sustenance from the sea and the coastal marshes and estuaries. The incredible size
and density of the forest trees would have made land clearing a difficult activity
there.
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