It's early August and the countryside appears peacef

  It's early August and the countryside appears peaceful. Planting has long been finished and the fields are alive with strong, healthy crops. Soybeans and wheat are flourishing under the hot summer sun, and the corn is now well over six feet tall. 46. Herds of dairy and beef cattle are grazing peacefully in rolling pastures which surround big, red barns and neat, white farmhouses. Everything as far as the eye can see radiates a sense of prosperity.

  The tranquility of the above scene is misleading. Farmers in the Midwest put in some of the longest workdays of any profession in the United States. In addition to caring for their crops and livestock they have to keep up with new farming techniques, such as those for combining soil erosion and increasing livestock production. It is essential that farmers adopt these advances in technology if they want to continue to meet the growing demands of a hungry world

  47. Agriculture is the number one industry in the United States and agricultural products are the country's leading export. Corn and soybean exports alone account for approximately 75 percent of the amount sold in world markets.

  This productivity, however, has its price Intensive cultivation exposes the earth to the damaging forces of nature. Every year wind and water remove tons of rich soil from the nation's croplands, with the result that soil erosion has become a national problem concerning everyone from the farmer to the consumer.

  Each field is covered by a limited amount of topsoil, the upper layer of earth which is richest in the nutrient and minerals necessary for growing crops. In the 1830s, nearly two feet of rich, black top soil covered the Midwest. Today the average depth is only eight inches, and every decade another inch is blown or washed away. 48. A United States Agricultural Department survey states that if erosion continues at its present rate, corn and soybean yields in the Midwest may drop as much as 30 percent over the next 50 years.

  So far, farmers have been able to compensate for the loss of fertile topsoil by applying more chemical fertilizers to their fields; however, while this practice has increased crop yields, it has been devastating for ecology. 49. Agriculture has become one of the biggest polluters of the nation's precious water supply. Rivers, lakes, and underground reserves of water are being filled in and poisoned by soil and chemicals carried by drainage from eroding fields. Furthermore, fertilizers only replenish the soil; they do not prevent its loss.

  Clearly something else has to be done in order to avoid an eventual ecological disaster. Conservationists insist that the solution to the problem lies in new and better farming techniques. 50. Concerned farmers are building terraces on hilly fields, rotating their crops, and using new plowing methods to cut soil losses significantly. Substantial progress has been made, but soil erosion is far from being under control.

  The problems and innovations of the agricultural industry in the Midwest are not restricted to growing crops. Livestock raising, which is a big business in the central region of the United States, is also undergoing many changes.

 

Directions: In the following passage, there are five groups of underlined sentences. Read the passage carefully and translate these sentences into Chinese. Write the Chinese version on your Answer Sheet.
【正确答案】：46.成群的奶牛和肉牛在绵延起伏的牧场上安静地吃着草,牧场的周围是高大的红色仓房和整齐的白色农舍。目之所及的一切都呈现出一派欣欣向荣的景象。
47.农业在美国是头等重要的产业,农产品也是该国最主要的出口产品。仅玉米和大豆的出口就占世界市场销售总额的75%左右。
48.美国农业部的一份报告表明,如果土壤侵蚀以目前的速度继续下去的话,中西部地区玉米和大豆的产量或许会在未来的50年中下降多达30%
49.农业已经成为该国宝贵的水资源的最大污染源之一河流、湖泊及地下水中充斥着来自受侵蚀的农田排水所夹带的泥土和化学物质,并因此正在受到污染。
50.有生态意识的农民们在山地上修造梯田,实行作物的轮作,并且采用新的耕作方法来大幅度地减少土壤流失。虽然已经取得了很大的进展,但是土壤侵蚀还远远没有得到控制。