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  3. Over-cultivation and a long period of soil erosion had reduced the fertility of much of the United States’ farmland. Forests had

Over-cultivation and a long period of soil erosion had reduced the fertility of much of the United States’ farmland. Forests had

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问题     Over-cultivation and a long period of soil erosion had reduced the fertility of much of the United States’ farmland. Forests had been cut or burned to provide additional cropland. In the mid 1930s, a series of dry years resulted in extreme crop losses in the Midwest. The winds of the Great Plains caused huge dust storms on overgrazed (过度放牧的) lands.
    To meet this challenge a philosophy of land use and conservation began to develop. Government bureaus believed farmers needed to be encouraged and educated on the values of better land-use practices. The independent-minded farmers sometimes found it hard to accept that someone else knew their business better than they did, or that they should think in terms of longrange self-interest rather than next year’s crop. Government conservation agents were employed to demonstrate better techniques, and when farmers saw that their neighbors who used new methods were prospering, they began to adopt the new methods. Further, government incentives were offered in the form of free service or even cash payment to improve their land.
    In the 1920s, demand for American farm products fell, as European countries began to recover from World War I and instituted austerity (紧缩) programs to reduce their imports. The result was a sharp drop in farm prices. This period was more disastrous for farmers than earlier times had been, because farmers were no longer self-sufficient. They were paying for machinery, seed, and fertilizer, and they were also buying consumer goods. The prices of the items farmers bought remained constant, while prices they received for their products fell. These developments were made worse by the Great Depression, which began in 1929 and extended throughout the 1930s.
    In 1929, the Federal Farm Board was organized. It established the principle of direct interference with supply and demand, and represented the first national commitment to provide greater economic stability for farmers.
    One of the first measures proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took office in 1933 was the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was subsequently enacted by Congress. This law gave the Secretary of Agriculture the power to reduce production through voluntary agreements with farmers who were paid to take their land out of use. A deliberate scarcity of farm products was planned in an effort to raise prices. This law was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court on the grounds that general taxes were being levied to pay one special group of people. However, new laws were passed immediately that achieved the same result of resting soil and providing flood-control measures, but which were based on the principle of soil conservation. The Roosevelt Administration believed that rebuilding the nation’s soil was in the national interest and was not simply a plan to help farmers at the expense of other citizens.
According to the passage, American farmers______.
选项 A、knew their business better than anyone else
B、usually cared more about their short-term interest
C、readily adopted better agricultural techniques
D、realized the values of better land use by themselves
答案B
解析
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