Which term describes societies based around the cultivation of plants?

• A. Horticultural societies
• B. Agricultural societies
• C. Feudal societies
• D. Industrial Societies

Answer: (A)

The concept here is how societies are classified by their main way of getting food, especially plant cultivation. Societies that center their economy on growing crops with simple, hand tools—like hoes and digging sticks—are described as horticultural. This approach typically involves small plots, sometimes shifting cultivation, and semi-permanent or settled communities organized around family or kin groups. It captures the idea of using basic techniques to cultivate plants as the primary subsistence activity.

Agricultural societies, while also about crop farming, rely on more intensive methods—plows, irrigation, animal labor—and tend to produce surplus, supporting larger populations and more complex social structures. Feudal societies refer to a political-economic arrangement of landholding and obligations, not strictly to a mode of subsistence. Industrial societies are defined by mechanized production and factories rather than plant cultivation. So the term that best describes societies built around cultivating plants with simple tools is horticultural societies.