VOA标准英语2010年-Winds Still 'Come Sweepin' Down the Pl-英语课

时间：2019-01-13 作者：英语课 分类：VOA标准英语2010年(八)月

英语课

This is the Cimarron National Grassland 1 in western Kansas. You can see that it's not very farmable but is worth preserving.

In 1935, during the heart of the Great Depression, whole sections of the American Midwest suffered through a terrible drought that produced monstrous 2 dust storms. They sucked up what little topsoil existed on prairie farms and blew away the livelihood 3 of thousands of small farmers with it.

One day that spring, a government soil surveyor named Hugh Hammond Bennett testified before Congress, pleading for creation of a federal service that would teach farmers how to plant the grasses that would save their land.

As he spoke 4, a thick cloud of dust howled by the window, almost blotting 5 out the sun. It had blown all the way from the Great Plains, more than 3,000 kilometers away.

Oklahoma Conservation Commission

Hugh Haskell Bennett stands in a heavily eroded 6 farm field near Haskell, Oklahoma, in 1943.

There, gentlemen, Hugh Bennett told the congressional committee, goes Oklahoma.

That certainly made his point, and the Soil Conservation Service was born. It began to plant grasses and crops that anchor the soil and keep it from blowing or washing away. Today, 20 publicly owned National Grasslands 7 spread over 1.5 million hectares stand as the legacy 8 of that effort.

They are generally marginal lands - their soil too poor for cultivation 9. Scars from abuse by plowing 10 or overgrazing remain. Where too many cattle trampled 11 the earth and turned the sod to dust, useless yucca and sagebrush have replaced the grass.

Library of Congress

A man and two boys bend to the howling wind outside a ramshackle shack 12 in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, which blew away whole fields of topsoil.

Fewer than 50 centimeters of rain a year fall on much of the western plains, so dust still blows. But the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees 13 the grasslands, encourages managed grazing on these public lands, for which ranchers pay fees that help pay for rural roads and schools.

The Forest Service calls this living carpet of grass an ecosystem 14. Despite new and managed growth on the Plains, one still finds the ruts of the tall wagons 15 called prairie schooners 16 that, a century and a half ago, brought modern civilization, with its blessings 17 and curses, to these seas of grass.

1 grassland

n.牧场，草地，草原

There is a reach of grassland in the distance.远处是连绵一片的草原。
The snowstorm swept the vast expanse of grassland.暴风雪袭击了辽阔的草原。

2 monstrous

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

3 livelihood

n.生计，谋生之道

Appropriate arrangements will be made for their work and livelihood.他们的工作和生活会得到妥善安排。
My father gained a bare livelihood of family by his own hands.父亲靠自己的双手勉强维持家计。

4 spoke

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说