I have been trained to think of neat, linear, symmetrical rows of discrete, ripening, and exchangeably harvestable plants. Thus, when I think of agriculture, I think of a field of goods, neatly arranged with an eye to stockpiling, to be canned, cooked, and eaten or sold for money at market. But that is not how the Indigenous People of what geometric cartographers call "The Western Hemisphere!" engaged in the cultivation of plant life. Rather, they looked at what grew where and how it grew there, they thought about how to enhance that growth, and they worked with it as a friend might work with a friend who needed a little encouragement. (It is here that I might recall that Thomas Jefferson commanded surveyors to draw imaginary lines that crossed at right angles with other lines, so that each rectangle of American soil could be turned into a commodity with a dollar value.)