TEXT 10 SOIL AND ITS MANAGEMENT

Good farming means proper use of many factors such as natural conditions, land, crops, livestock, machinery, fertilizers and some others. All these factors have to be put together to make the farming system work successfully.

One of the most important points to be taken into consideration in farming is the soil which is known to be a natural resource that supports plant life. It is a mixture of particles of rock, organic materials, living forms, air and water.

During his entire existence upon the Earth man has depended upon the soil either directly or indirectly. Grain, fruits and vegetables are food products obtained by man directly from the soil. Domestic animals consume grain and forage produced by the soil and in turn supply people with meat, milk, eggs and other products used for human food. These are the products obtained from the soil indirectly.

Some good clay and loamy soils are naturally poor. Various factors that make up soil fertility are moisture conditions, plant food, and soil structure. All these components may be regulated by proper management of the soil.

Soil management is the science of tillage operations, cropping practices, using fertilizers, lime and other treatments conducted on, or applied to, a soil for the production of crops.

Plant growth and yields can be increased by applying certain recommended soil management practices, liming, fertilization and irrigation producing, as a rule, immediate yield increases. Good soil management results in better yields and lower cost per unit of production. Fertile soils produce plants that are less affected by diseases and less likely to be attacked by insects. In this case small losses of crops result.

Some time ago attention was centered on such macroelements as phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium. Now, it is well known that in addition to primary plant food elements mentioned, so-called secondary elements (calcium, magnesium, and sulphur) as well as microelements or trace elements (boron, copper, manganese, zinc, and molybdenum) may be highly important for crop yields, for livestock and human health.

That is why all farmers should make soil tests in order to determine whether any essential elements are lacking in the soil and to determine the rate of fertilizers to be applied.

I. Study the following words:

Entire, loam, clay loam, forage, treatment, conduct, germinate, lack, stunt, fertile, soil management, disease, essential, tillage, consume, yields.

II. Define the part of speech of the following words:

Loamy, management, liming, various, growth, consume, fertilizers, essential, secondary, lower, indirectly, obtained, structure.

III. Match the words with their definitions:

1.Conservation,2. seedbed, 3 soil improvement, 4. dryland farming, 5. insecticide, 6. compost, 7. plant nutrient, 8. environment, 9. drainage.

1. A mixture of organic matter and the soil that is subjected to biological decomposition. 2. The protection of natural resources according to principles that will assure their highest economic or social efficiency.3. The removal of excess water from land. 4. The practice of crop production in low rainfall areas without irrigation. 5. All the external conditions that may act upon an organism to influence its development or existence. 6. The soil prepared for sowing seed. 7. Making the soil more productive for growing plants. 8. A chemical used to kill insects. 9. A chemical required for plant growth and development.

IV. Put questions to the following sentences:

1. Successful farming means proper use of natural conditions.

2. Moisture, plant nutrients and soil structure are the main components of fertile soil.

3. Fertilizers are added to the soil to meet the plant food needs.

4. Cotton requires higher temperature for its growth than wheat.

5. Yields can be increased by applying proper soil management practices.

6. Grain is obtained by man directly from the soil.

7. It is necessary to make soil tests in order to determine what elements are deficient.

8. Proper temperature is also essential for successful plant growth.

9. Crops vary in their climatic requirements.

10. Crop yields are affected by soil and climatic conditions.

V. Write a short summary of the text ‘Soil and its management’.

TEXT 11 WATER

Water is the most common substance on earth. It covers more than 70 per cent of the earth’s surface. It fills the oceans, rivers, and is in the ground and in the air we breathe. Water is everywhere. Without water, there can be no life. In fact, every living thing consists mostly of water. Your body is about two- thirds water. A chicken is about three- fourths water, and a pineapple is about four- fifths water. Most scientists believe that life itself began in water – in the salty water of the sea.

Ever since the world began, water has been shaping the earth. Rain hammers at the land and washes soil into rivers. The oceans pound against the shores, chiseling cliffs and carrying away land. Rivers knife through rock, carve canyons, and build up land where they empty into the sea. Glaciers plow valleys and cut down mountains. Water helps keep the earth’s climate from getting too hot or too cold. Land absorbs and releases heat from the sun quickly. But the oceans absorb and release the sun’s heat slowly. So breezes from the oceans bring warmth to the land in winter and in winter and coolness in summer.

Throughout history, water has been people’s slave – and their master. Great civilizations have risen where water supplies were plentiful. They have fallen when these supplies failed. People have killed one another for a muddy water hole. They have worshiped rain gods and prayed for rain. Often, when rains have failed to come, crops have withered and starvation has spread across a land. Sometimes the rains have fallen too heavily and too suddenly. Then rivers have overflowed their banks, drowning large numbers of people and causing enormous destruction of property.

Today, more than ever, water is both slave and master to people. We use water in our homes for cleaning, cooking, bathing, and carrying away wastes. We use water to irrigate dry farmlands so we can grow more food. Our factories use more water than any other material. We use the water in rushing rivers and thundering waterfalls to produce electricity.

Our demand for water is constantly increasing. Every year, there are more people in the world. Factories turn out more and more products, and need more and more water. We live in a world of water. But almost all of it – about 97 per cent – is in the oceans. This water is too salty to be used for drinking, farming, and manufacturing. Only about 3 per cent of the world’s water is fresh (unsalty). Most of this water is not easily available to people because it is locked in icecaps and other glaciers. By the year 2000, the world demand for fresh water may be double what it was in the 1980's.’But there will still be enough to meet people's needs.

I. Answer the following questions :

What is water ? What forms of water do you know ?

How much per cent does water cover the earth’s surface ?

Where does water flow ?

Can we live without water ? Why ?

Every living thing consists mostly of water, doesn’t it ? Do you know any facts about it ?

Is water slave or master to people ?

What negative or positive sides of water do you know ?

“ Water Is Life”

Water is the natural resource we all know very well. We know its many forms – rain, snow, ice, hail, vapor, fog. Yet, water is the natural resource we least understand.

How does water get into the clouds? What happens when it reaches the Earth? Why is there sometimes too much and other times too little of it ? And, most important, is there enough water for all the plants, and all the animals, and all the people?

Water covers nearly three fourths of the Earth, most being sea water. But sea water contains various salts, including those that are harmful to most land plants and animals. Still, it is from the salty seas and oceans that most of our fresh water comes- no longer salty and harmful. Water moves from clouds to land and back to the ocean in a never- ending cycle.

Ocean water evaporates into atmosphere leaving salts behind, and moves across the Earth as water vapor. Water in lakes and rivers also evaporates and rises into the air. Having cooled in the air the water vapor condenses and falls to the Earth as rain, hail or snow, depending on region, climate, season and topography. This part of the cycle is very important because man can use water stored in the atmosphere only when it falls to the land.

Every year about 450,000 cubic kilometers of water evaporates from the oceans and about 61,000 cubic kilometers from land sources.

Water is an unchanging and ever renewing resource but its distribution on the surface of the globe varies greatly – there is either too little or too much water. Many problems are caused by too much water when we do not want it or too little when we do want it.

No natural resource on our planet has so many uses as water. We need water to support our lives, to grow our crops, to water our stock, to power our industries and for many other purposes.

Our water needs are great and they continue to grow. Agriculture requires great quantities of water to provide food and raw materials for industry. Industry consumes not less water than agriculture. Per capita use of water is increasing rapidly in the world.

There is plenty of water on the Earth. But the amount of fresh water available to man is very small.

In socialist society measures are taken against waste of water and pollution of water. We have to use water more efficiently in industry, towns and cities, in agriculture and irrigation. All life depends on water.

I. Find definitions to the following words:

Air, Earth, water, sea, nature, plant, vegetable, moisture, soil, ground, land

Salt water which covers most of the Earth’s surface. 2. The planet on which we live. 3. The system of things of which we ourselves are a part. 4. The mixture of gases that surrounds the earth. 5. The common liquid which fills the rivers, lakes, seas and oceans. 6. Water vapor either in the air or condensed on a surface.7. Any form of vegetable life. 8. Any kind of plant which is used for food. 9. The earth in which things grow. 10. The surface of the Earth. 11. The solid part of the Earth’s surface contrasted with water and sea.

II. Tell about “Water cycle”.

III. Find opposite words:

a) to fall, to appear, to heat, to evaporate, moist, cold, to give, far, always, easy, heat, to decrease, to produce, to die, useful, inefficient, salt.

b) To disappear, to rise, to cool, efficient, harmful, to live, never, difficult, to condense, to take, hot, dry, fresh, near, cold, to increase, to consume.

IV. Find odd words:

1. heat, light, motion, surface ; 2. a plant, a crop, an animal, a hat, a man; 3.soil, water, land, ground, Earth ; 4. autumn, summer, sunlight, winter, spring ;5. quickly, directly, fast, slowly, rapidly; 6. an ocean, a lake , an inch, a river, a sea; 7. to plow, to sow, to plant, to harm, to cultivate, to harvest.

V. Read and translate the text given below :

“ Mice Under Water”

Words To Help You Understand the Passage

temperature Temperature is how cold or how hot something is. It is usually

measured by a thermometer.

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide is a gas that is passed out of the lungs during

breathing

fluid-filled Fluid is another word for liquid. Fluid- filled means something is

filled with a liquid.

Mice can live for many hours under water. A team of scientists has found that rodents can breath under water if two conditions are met. The water must contain salts and it must have more oxygen than is usually found in water.

The scientists were led to their experiments by a study of how animals and people drown. Mice were put under water and were watched until their breathing stopped. When the tank was filled with ordinary sea water or tap water, the mice died quickly. When it was filled with a salt solution in which the salt solution in which the salt was equal to that in the mouse’s body and when oxygen was bubbled into it, the mice lived for as long as four hours. When the temperature was held at 20º C. and a chemical was added to improve carbon dioxide exchange, the mice lived to a maximum of nearly 18 hours.

The water- breathing rodents may provide a means of studying breathing problems in newborn infants who live in a fluid- filled womb up to the moment of birth.