[00:06.40]Listening Task
[02:45.77]Listening Task
[02:54.55]Match the descriptions with the sites in the map.
[05:00.62]Reading Task
[05:09.76]AN EARLY FARMER PIONEER
[05:14.20]Some people thought Jia Sixie was a lucky man.
[05:19.66]He had worked for the emperor and when he got old,
[05:24.41]he was able to go to his hometown to relax.
[05:29.17]But Jai Sixie had other plans.
[05:33.53]He had always been interested in agriculture
[05:38.49]and intended to do something to make Chinese farming even better.
[05:44.14]Jia Sixie lived in the sixth century AD.
[05:49.78]He was born in Yidu in Shandong Province and worked in Gaoyang,
[05:55.84]which is also in Shandong.
[05:59.31]As he rode through the countryside on his journeys
[06:04.17]for his work he looked out at the fields.
[06:08.90]Some of them were greener and had more crops than others.
[06:14.33]Some cows and sheep looked healthier than others too.
[06:19.59]He was lost in thought.
[06:22.75]How could a farmer get the good crops from his fields?
[06:28.18]Surely there must be rules that helped them.
[06:32.54]He thought he could use his knowledge to find out the best ways
[06:38.79]for farmers to grow crops and then write a book to help them.
[06:45.03]In doing so he collected information from good farmers,
[06:50.70]studied it,and did experiments to find the best way.
[06:55.84]For example,he studied ways of keeping seeds
[07:02.22]and advised farmers to choose seed-heads which had the best colour.
[07:08.07]Then he told them to hang them up to dry all winter.
[07:13.92]The next spring the seeds should be knocked out of their seed-heads and sown.
[07:20.89]He studied how to improve the soil.
[07:24.94]He advised farmers to clear weeds from the ground before planting crops.
[07:31.32]They could either let the animals eat the weeds
[07:35.86]or turn the soil over so that the weeds were covered and would rot.
[07:42.11]Then he gave advice on turning over the soil.
[07:47.07]The first time each year farmers should dig deeply,
[07:52.03]but the second time it should be less deep.
[07:56.29]So the autumn ploughing of the soil should be deeper than the spring ploughing.
[08:02.66]He suggested changing crops in the field every year:
[08:08.12]rive one year and wheat the next so that they would always get good crops.
[08:15.57]They should also grow different plants next to each other in the field.
[08:22.13]He also gave advice on how to fich,
[08:26.38]keep a garden and even make wine.
[08:30.96]He wrote down his advice in a book called QI Min Yao Shu,
[08:37.20]which was considered to be an important summary of the knowledge of farming.
[08:43.36]For centuries after Jia Sixie died,
[08:48.12]it was studied by Chinese farmers and students of agriculture |