It issued – wait for it – a specific exemption for maize cultivation from all soil conservation measures.
"Three Sisters and Corn Maidens: Native American Maize Cultivation and Customs".
Traditionally, the Malecite practiced corn (maize) cultivation, as well as hunting and fishing.
There, large mechanized holdings are devoted almost exclusively to corn (maize) cultivation.
Until World War II the economy was dependent upon intensive sugarcane, cotton, and corn (maize) cultivation.
However, more than 200 years of cotton and corn (maize) cultivation has contributed to severe soil erosion.
"The conditions for maize cultivation were good and the inhabitants of the area ate little else," the British archaeologist Alan K. Outram explains in his wide-ranging essay about hunter-gatherers and early farming cultures.
So the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., calls its exhibition on the subject "Three Sisters and Corn Maidens: Native American Maize Cultivation and Customs".
Like other Archaic cultures in North America, the Basketmaker II economy combined hunting, gathering wild plant foods, and some corn (maize) cultivation.
The same basic pattern continued in the Mogollon 2, except that more varieties of pottery appeared and corn (maize) cultivation and the hunting of larger game such as deer assumed predominance.
Mosquitoes are known to feed on maize pollen, and a 2005 study reported an association between intensified maize cultivation and higher malaria transmission in an area of Ethiopia, where a high-yielding variety introduced in the mid-90s replaced more traditional crops such as teff, barley and sorghum.
