AP Geo 5a

Agriculture

The planting and harvesting of domesticated plants and the raising of domesticated animals for food

Climate

The average pattern of weather over a 30-year period for a particular region

Clustered rural settlement (or farm village)

A tightly bunched farm settlement that has anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred inhabitants

Columbian exchange

The interaction and widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, disease, and ideas between the Americas, West Africa, and the Old World in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

Commercial agriculture

Farming oriented exclusively toward the production of agricultural commodities for sale in the market

Crop rotation

The practice of rotating use of different fields from crop to crop each year to avoid exhausting the soil.

Dispersed rural settlement

A rural settlement pattern characterized by isolated farms rather than clustered villages.

Domestication

The long-term process through which humans selectively breed, protect, and care for individuals taken from populations of wild plant and animal species to create genetically distinct species, known as domesticates

Enclosure movement (act)

The process of consolidating small land holdings into a smaller number of larger farms in England during the eighteenth century.

Extensive agriculture

Crop cultivation and livestock rearing systems that require little hired labor or monetary investment to successfully raise crops and animals

Extensive subsistence agriculture

consists of any agricultural economy in which the crops and/or animals are used nearly exclusively for local or family consumption on large areas of land and minimal labor input per acre.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)

A living organism, including crops and livestock, that is produced through genetic engineering

Green Revolution

The U.S.-supported development of high-yield seed varieties that increased the productivity of cereal crops and accompanying agricultural technologies for transfer to less developed countries

Hybridization

cross pollinating two genetically different strains to result in a third strain with different traits.

Intensive subsistence agriculture

A form of subsistence agriculture characteristic of Asia's major population concentration in which farmers must expend a relatively large amount of effort to produce the maximum feasible yield from a parcel of land.

Linear settlement (distribution) pattern

A settlement pattern in which buildings are arranged in a line, often along a road or river; limited to areas where legal systems dictated that property lines must be rectangular

Market gardening

A small-scale farming system in which a farmer plants one to a few acres that produce a diverse mixture of vegetables and fruits, mostly for sale in local and regional markets

Mediterranean agriculture

practice of crop cultivation undertaken in areas with Mediterranean climates. Warm, dry summers and mild, rainy winters in general.

Metes & bounds

Survey system that uses natural features such as trees, boulders, and streams to delineate property boundaries

Milkshed

The area surrounding a city from which milk is supplied.

Mixed crop farming

A diversified system of agriculture based on the cultivation of cereal grains and root crops (such as potatoes and yams) and the rearing of herd livestock

Pastoral nomadism

A form of subsistence agriculture based on herding domesticated animals.

Plantation

Large landholding devoted to capital-intensive, specialized production of a single tropical or subtropical crop for the global marketplace

Shifting cultivation

The cultivation of a plot of land until it becomes less productive, typically over a period of about three to five years; when productivity drops, the farmer shifts to a new plot of land that has been prepared by slash-and-burn agriculture

Subsistence agriculture

Food production mainly for consumption by the farming family and local community, rather than principally for sale in the market

Township & range

Land survey system created by the U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785, which divides most of the country's territory into a grid of square-shaped townships with 6-mile sides

Transhumance

A phenomenon where herders and their livestock move seasonally between their summer and winter pastures

Yield

the amount of agricultural product harvested per unit of land

1st Agricultural Revolution

The slow change from hunter and gatherer societies to more agriculturally based ones through the gradual understanding of seeds, watering, and plant care.

2nd Agricultural Revolution

used the increased technology from the Industrial Revolution as a means to increase farm productivity through mechanization