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TPO 33—2 铁路和商品化农业
原文：中小学德育工作指南
Railroads and Commercial Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century United States周琦微博
【1】By 1850 the United States possd roughly 9,000 miles of railroad track; Ten years later it had over 30,000 miles, more than the rest of the world combined. Much of the new construction during the
1850s occurred west of the Appalachian Mountains—over 2,000 miles in the states of Ohio and Illinois alone.网名大全女生
光交换机【2】The effect of the new railroad lines rippled outward through the economy. Farmers along the tracks began to specialize in corps that they could market in distant locations. With their profits they purchad manufactured goods that earlier they might have made at home. Before the railroad reached Tenne, the state produced about 25,000 bushels (or 640 tons) of wheat, which sold for less than 50 cents a bushel. Once the railroad came, farmers in the same counties grew 400,000 bushels (over 10,000 tons) and sold their crop at a dollar a bushel.
【3】The new railroad networks shifted the direction of western trade. In 1840 most northwestern grain was shipped south down the Mississippi River to the bustling port of New Orleans. But low water made steamboat travel hazardous in summer, and ice shut down traffic in winter. Products such as lard, tallow, and chee quickly spoiled if stored in New Orleans’ hot and humid warehous. Increasingly, traffic from the Midwest flowed west to east, over the new rail lines. Chicago became the region’s hub, linking the farms of the upper Midwest to New York and other eastern cities by more than 2,000 miles of track in 1855. Thus while the value of
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goods shipped by river to New Orleans continued to increa, the South’s overall share of western trade dropped dramatically.
【4】A sharp ri in demand for grain abroad also encouraged farmers in the Northeast and Midwest to become more commercially oriented. Wheat, which in 1845 commanded $1.08 a bushel in New York City, fetched $2.46 in 1855; in similar fashion the price of corn nearly doubled. Farmers responded by specializing in cash crops, borrowing to purcha more land, and investing in equipment to increa productivity.
【5】As railroad lines fanned out from Chicago, farmers began to acquire open prairie land in Illinois and then Iowa, putting the fertile, deep black soil into production. Commercial agriculture transformed this remarkable treeless environment. To ttlers accustomed to eastern woodlands, the thousands of square miles of tall grass were an awesome sight. Indian grass, Canada wild rye, and native big bluestem all grew higher than a person. Becau eastern plows could not penetrate the denly tangled roots of prairie grass, the earliest ttlers erected farms along the boundary parating the forest from the prairie. In 1837, however, John Deere patented a sharp-cutting steel plow that sliced through the sod without soil sticking to the blade. Cyrus McCormick refined a mechanical reaper that harvested fourteen times more wheat with the same amount of labor. By the
1850s McCormick was lling 1,000 reapers a year and could not keep up with demand, while Deere turned out 10,000 plows annually.
【6】The new commercial farming fundamentally altered the Midwestern landscape
面试问题及答案and the environment. Native Americans had grown corn in the region for years, but never in such large fields as did later ttlers who became farmers, who surplus were shipped east. Prairie farmers also introduced new crops that were not part of the earlier ecological system, notably wheat, along with fruits and vegetables. 【7】Native grass were replaced by a small number of plants cultivated as commodities. Corn had the best yields, but it was primarily ud to feed livestock. Becau bread played a key role in the American and European diet, wheat became the major cash crop. Tame grass replaced native grass in pastures for making hay.
【8】Western farmers altered the landscape by reducing the annual fires that had kept the prairie free from trees. In the abnce of the fires, trees reappeared on land not in cultivation and, if undisturbed, eventually formed woodlots. The earlier unbroken landscape gave way to independent farms, each fenced off in a preci checkerboard pattern. It was an artificial ecosystem of animals, woodlots, and crops, who large, uniform layout made western farms more efficient than the more-irregular farms in the East.
题目：
1.According to paragraph 1, each of the following is true about railroad track in the United States EXCEPT:
A.In 1850 the United States had less than 10,000 miles of railroad track.
B.By the end of the 1850s, Ohio and Illinois contained more railroad track than any
谈恋爱累吗other state in the country.
C.Much of the railroad track built in the United States during the 1850s was located west of the Appalachian Mountain.
D.By 1860 there were more miles of railroad track in the United States than in any other country.
2.It can be inferred from paragraph 2 that the new railroads had which of the following effects on farm communities?
A.Most new farms were located along the tracks.
B.Farmers began to grow wheat as a commercial corp.
C.Many farmers decided to grow a wider variety of crops.
D.Demand for manufactured goods incread among farmers.
3.The word "bustling" in the passage (paragraph 3) is clost in meaning to
A.famous.
B.important.
D.busy.
4.According to paragraph 3, in what way did the new rail networks change western trade?
飞机模型的英文A.Northwestern farmers almost completely stopped shipping goods by steamboat.
B.Many western goods began to be shipped east by way of Chicago rather than south to New Orleans.
C.Chicago largely replaced New York and other eastern cities as the final market for
