Revision summary
Horticulture uses hand tools and fallow, not the plough as the main engine. Swidden and mixed gardens are typical. Trobriand yam gardens show kinship claiming produce. Boserup tied intensification to population pressure. It is a skilled ecology, not a failed agriculture.
Model answer
Introduction
Horticulture is small-plot plant cultivation with hand tools, often with fallow. It sits between foraging and plough agriculture.
Body
Features
- Digging stick, hoe, and axe matter more than the plough and draught animal.
- Swidden or slash-and-burn, as in Northeastern India and Melanesia, uses ash, then long fallow.
- Gardens mix tubers, banana, and pulses. Surplus is modest. Land is often lineage-held, as Malinowski showed in Trobriand yam gardens.
Contrast
- Esther Boserup treated intensification as a response to population, not a one-way ladder.
- Sahlins placed horticulturalists in a domestic mode of production, with kinship claiming the harvest.
- It is not ‘primitive farming’. It is a skilled ecology of soil rest and plot rotation.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD H[Horticulture] --> T[Hoe stick fallow] H --> K[Kin tenure] H --> S[Swidden jhum]
Conclusion
Horticulture is hoe-and-fallow cultivation inside kin tenure. Trobriand yams and Naga jhum are type cases, not failed ploughing.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Historical Particularism.
Next question in the 2015 paper (Q1). View answer →
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Is horticulture the same as gardening for leisure?
No. It is a subsistence system. The English word is a technical label for hoe cultivation.
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Does it always destroy forest?
Long fallow can hold forest. Short fallow under land pressure is the risk.
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