cultivated plants

Simple text and photographs introduce various crops on a farm.

Anyone who has ever tried to plant a garden, or even grow a plant, knows it’s not always an easy task. That’s why farmers do what they can to ensure a healthy crop, and that includes cultivating the soil. They till it, allowing air, nutrients, and water to circulate more easily. Doing this by hand would be nearly impossible on some farms, so farmers use some fantastic machines to aid them. Readers will love learning about the big machines called cultivators through labeled photographs and bright, accessible text.

The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favor of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This shift into an agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilizations of recent human history. Reviews and synthesises the information on the origins and domestication.

Explains the importance of and provides guidance for favoring native plants in one's garden in order to sustain native species of insects, birds, and other animals, and provides lists of native plants of the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Southwest, and Pacific Northwest regions of the U.S.

How can we organize and name all of the different animals and plants in the world? Many had tried before, but Carl Linnaeus came up with a system that we still use today. This Swedish scientist from over 300 years ago is known as the father of classification. Linnaeuss system gave each plant or animal just two names. For example, the scientific term for human beings is Homo sapiens. In Latin, Homo means "man" and sapiens means "wise.".

Reveals the course of the agricultural revolution, showing how basic archaeological methods and modern technologies are used to investigate one of the most important developments in human history.

Tells what food the Indians gave us.

A comprehensive guide to native North American plants that provides gardeners and landscape professionals with an overview of hundreds of different types of native perennials, biennials, and annuals, with a general description of each plant, along with information on cultivation, distribution, garden maintenance, and more.