Plants, climate and weather

FORESTRY AND WOODWORKING

Учебное пособие для изучения

английского языка для студентов 1 курса

специальностей факультета природопользования и экологии

TEXT 1

LONDON PARKS

English people are said to be country lovers and what they like best in their cities are their parks and gardens. English landscape gardening doesn’t use geometrical design, but tries to retain nature as it is only improving it a little. London has many parks and gardens which offer some peace from the busy city. London parks are pieces of country left in the midst of town.

The largest and the most popular of the London parks is Hyde Park. Including the adjoining Kensington Gardens, the length and breadth of the Park extend over an area of 636 acres. Everybody can rest here in the way he likes. A very attractive lake called Serpentine is used to swim in and to row on in summer. Another attraction of Hyde Park is the horse-riding lane known as Rotten Row, which is a mile and a half long. The park also offers such recreational activities as cycling and tennis. Hyde Park is a garden where you may walk and sit on the grass. There are vast of lawn with groups of trees where Londoners lie or sit about. Hyde Park is also famous for its Speaker’s Corner. On Sundays anyone can make a speech about something he believes to be very important. Hampstead Heath, in north London, is London's largest ancient parkland. St James's Park is London's oldest Royal Park. It is next to Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and the Houses of Parliament and there are free concerts at weekends during the summer. One of the most popular sights are the pelicans on the lake. Holland Park is famous for its Japanese garden and peacocks.

Other well-known and important London parks are Regent’s Park, Green Park. In the south-west London, near the river Thames there is a fantastic park of Great Britain – the Kew Gardens. It is a botanical garden. All year round you can see lots of flowers there. There are hundreds of different trees, some of them are 200 years old. Londoners love their parks and are proud of them.

Words to remember:

1. landscape – ландшафт, пейзаж

2. design – конструкция, композиция

3. lawn – газон, лужайка

4. garden – сад

5. activity – деятельность

6. to walk – ходить, гулять

7. to extend – простираться, тянуться

8. to retain – сохранять, поддерживать

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. Do English people like parks and gardens?

2. Which London Park is the most famous?

3. What can people do in Hyde Park?

4. Can people walk or sit on the grass in Hyde Park?

5. Why do people come to the Speaker’s Corner?

6. What other London parks do you know?

7. Are Londoners proud of their parks?

Exercise 2. Choose the proper word. Read and translate the sentence.

1. London parks are pieces of (city, country, water) left in the midst of town.

2. Hyde Park is the (largest, smallest, tallest) park in London.

3. Kensington Gardens (adjust, achieve, adjoin) Hyde Park.

4. Serpentine is a very nice (river, lake, waterfall).

5. (Rotten Row, Hyde Park, Serpentine) is a mile and a half long.

6. The Kew Gardens is a botanical (town, garden, activity).

7. There are hundreds of (parks, lakes, trees) in the Kew Gardens.

TEXT 2

PARKS

People have been building cities and are living in them since very ancient times but they have always been trying not to separate themselves from nature too much, as nature gives rest. That is why they have been surrounding with gardens their stone and wooden houses in cities and towns. They have been planting parks and leaving large areas of forest unchanged.

A park is an area with either planted or natural vegetation, roads, alleys and various things to help people to rest and to spend their free time usefully. Some parks are very small with only a few trees and flowers. Others have many square kilometers of territory.

Parks are of two types: regular and irregular. Regular parks are planned in geometrical proportion of alleys, roads, gardens and waters, they are usually decorated with fountains and sculptures. In irregular parks trees, roads and waters imitate natural landscape unchanged by man.

Parks were built already in very ancient time. We know of wonderful architectural parks of ancient Egypt. Everyone heard of the Babylonian suspension gardens. Beautiful landscape type parks are known in ancient China. In ancient Greece special gardens were built with space for sports.

The peculiar feature of Russian parks has always been a harmonious union of man-made design with the surrounding landscape. Famous “Summer Garden” located in the centre of St.Petersburg is a geometrically proportional park with several sculptures of Italian masters. The park occupies a little piece of land washed by the Neva, Moika and Fontanka. Large old trees grow here.

If there are many parks and trees in a city then its population will have enough oxygen to breath.

Words to remember:

1. ancient – древний

2. nature – природа

3. stone – камень

4. area – область, зона

5. vegetation – растительность

6. road – дорога

7. space – пространство

8. feature – черта, особенность

9. to occupy – занимать

10. to breath – дышать

11. population – население

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. What is the reason for people to plant gardens and parks?

2. What is a park?

3. What types of parks do you know?

4. What are the famous ancient parks?

5. How do people decorate parks?

6. What are the main features of Russian parks?

Exercise 2. Choose the proper word. Read and translate the sentence.

1. People (decorate, surround, build) themselves with parks and gardens.

2. Parks appeared in (ancient, high, hard) time.

3. (Irregular, regular, special) parks are planned in geometrical proportion of roads, gardens and waters.

4. In ancient Greece special gardens were built with space for (fountains, flowers, sports).

5. Parks play a very important part in providing people with (sculptures, oxygen, water).

Exercise 3. Read, translate and learn the following sayings.

1. I've searched all the parks in all the cities and found

no statues of committees. (Gilbert K. Chesterton)

2. Parks are idealizations of nature, but nature in fact

is not a condition of the ideal. (Robert Smithson)

TEXT 3

A TREE IN A CITY

Tree is a very large and very old plant. We read about trees in old legends, Russian and foreign ones. Many thousand years ago man thought that there was a tree in the centre of the earth.

Trees make a garden, a park, a forest. Trees are very important for life and health, because they produce oxygen. Without trees the ecology of the earth would have no balance. Trees give timber for our industry, agriculture and our home life. They protect the fields from wind and keep water and soil in them. Trees also give protection for animals. Man gets comfort and beauty from trees. They give harmony to cities, towns and villages.

What is a tree? A tree is a high woody plant. It takes water and minerals from the soil and transports them to the leaves. Here with the help of sunlight and carbon dioxide the tree makes its food.

In cities with their large population and many industries the air is not good. It is necessary to have many trees in a city to make its air good for man. But it is difficult for a tree to grow in the city because it wants water, soil and light for its life. Water affects the form, growth and structure of the tree, but it’s difficult to give enough water to the trees in city streets. Each tree species wants its special soil, but in a city there are no different soils for each tree. High buildings in the city do not let trees have enough sunlight. So when people plant trees in the city, they should try to create good conditions for their growth.

Words to remember:

1. plant – растение

2. Earth – Земля

3. forest – лес

4. oxygen – кислород

5. ecology – экология

6. timber – лесоматериалы

7. soil – почва

8. field – поле

9. agriculture – сельское хозяйство

10. industry – промышленность

11. leaf (leaves) – листок (листья)

12. enough – достаточно

13. growth – рост

14. to create - создавать

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. Why are trees important for life?

2. Hoe do trees influence people’s life?

3. What kind of plant is a tree?

4. Where does a tree get its food?

5. Why is the air not good in big cities?

6. Why is it difficult for a tree to grow in the city?

7. What conditions should people create for trees’ growth?

Exercise 2. Choose the proper word. Read and translate the sentence.

1. We can read about trees in old (parks, legends, buildings).

2. Long time ago men thought there was a (field, forest, tree) in the centre of the earth.

3. Trees produce (oxygen, hydrogen, air).

4. Trees can make (a garden, a city, a town).

5. Sunlight is (dangerous, necessary, different) for a tree.

6. Each tree species needs its special (street, water, soil).

7. Trees give (protection, balance, water) for animals.

Exercise 3. Read, translate and learn the following sayings.

1. Though a tree grows ever so high, the falling leaves return to the ground. (Malayan proverb)

2. A tree never hits an automobile except in self defense. (American proverb)

3. Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.

(Rabindranath Tagore)

Exercise 4. Read and translate the text:

The underground part of a forest

The underground part of a forest is made up of the roots of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, those having little or no woody tissue and usually singled-seasoned. Roots of trees are seldom dug up except where land is being reclaimed for agricultural or construction purposes, where the roots are to be used for medical or artistic purposes, or where residual stumps and taproots of old-growth longleaf and slash pines are used to make turpentine, rosin, and various pine oils.

The root system of a tree may consist of four parts: (1) a tap root, which when present anchors the tree firmly in the ground and supplies the main support for the tree; (2) lateral roots, which usually extend beyond the crown spread and help keep the tree in an upright position; (3) fibrous roots, a mass of fine roots most found in the upper soil; and (4) thin-walled root hairs, which grow from the smaller fibrous roots and absorbs water and minerals. They may live only a few days.

TEXT 4

PLANTS AND THEIR USES

Plants are special living things: they accumulate sunlight and make organic matter from inorganic one in their leaves. They give off oxygen into the air during this process. Plants play a very important part in conservation and protection of soil, water and animals. They protect soil from the wind and keep water in the soil.

From earliest times plants are known to play an important part in everyday life of a man. We know plants to provide us with food, clothing, shelter and many other necessary things. People are still as dependent upon plants as primitive man was many thousand years ago. Great necessity caused primitive man to grow plants. And the cultivation of plants is thought to be closely connected with man’s progress. In order to grow plants man had to settle down and to begin building homes. Primitive people had few needs except food and clothing.

Civilization has increased man’s wants to a great extent. The man of today is no longer satisfied with merely having food to eat and house to live in. He wants raw materials to make useful things and products.

Man’s food and clothing are produced directly or indirectly by plants. Many animals feed on plants and produce food and raw materials to be used by man. Without plants neither animals nor men will be able to live. Many things people use in everyday life are made from plants. The paper they write on, the clothes they wear, the tables they sit at, all come from plants. Plants are used as timber in furniture making an as fuel in house heating. Many drugs used in medicine are also made from plants.

Words to remember:

1. to accumulate – накапливать

2. conservation – сохранение

3. protection – защита

4. to provide – обеспечивать

5. to grow – расти

6. to connect – связывать, соединять

7. to settle down – поселиться, обосноваться

8. raw – сырой. необработанный

9. useful – полезный

10. fuel – топливо

11. furniture – мебель

12. heating – обогрев

13. drug – лекарство

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. What caused primitive people to grow plants?

2. Why are plants important for animals?

3. What do we need raw materials for?

4. What can be made from plants?

5. Are people still dependent upon plants?

Exercise 2. Choose the proper word. Read and translate the sentence.

1. Plants are part of (animals, nature, sunlight).

2. Plants keep (oxygen, food, water) in the soil.

3. Primitive people have to grow plants to get (shelter, oxygen, soil).

4. The cultivation of plants is closely connected with (conservation, progress, building).

5. People need raw materials to make (everyday life, great necessity, useful things).

6. Plants (provide, protect, produce) people with food and clothing.

Exercise 3. Read, translate and learn the following sayings.

1. The sun, with all those plants revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. (Galileo)

2. To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug. (Helen Keller)

3. Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made and forgot to put a soul into. (Henry Ward Beecher)

4. Choose only one master - Nature. (Rembrandt)

5. Nature is the art of God. (Dante Alighieri)

TEXT 5

PLANTS AND NATURE

Plants and animals are organic nature. On the Earth plants make one third. Animals and man will not live without plants, because the cycle of nature links them. This natural process gives man and animals oxygen and food. The Sun gives energy for this process. Plants are special living things: they accumulate sunlight and make organic matter from inorganic in their leaves. Plants use sunlight and make their food; they give off oxygen into the air during this process. Man and animals breathe out carbon dioxide, which plants combine with sun energy, water and minerals from the soil and in this way make their food. After plants and animals die, rotting process will give back minerals to the soil, where plants will again use them.

Plants also play a very important part in conservation and protection of soil, water and animals. They protect soil from the wind and keep water in the soil.

Trees give off a lot of oxygen into the air. For example, a hectare of pine forest gives oxygen for ten people. It is necessary to have 1000 square kilometers of forest for ten million people. If there are many parks and trees in a city and many forests around it, then its population will have enough oxygen to breathe.

Words to remember:

1. to link – соединять, связывать

2. animal - животное

3. to give off - выделять

4. carbon dioxide – углекислый газ

5. rotting process – процесс гниения

6. forest – лес

7. population – население

8. enough – достаточно

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. Could animals and man live without plants?

2. What links them?

3. What do plants accumulate?

4. What do plants give off?

5. What do man and animals breathe out?

6. How do plants make their food?

TEXT 6

PLANTS, CLIMATE AND WEATHER

Weather is the effect of four forces. They are temperature or heat, moisture or water in the air, wind or air movement and pressure of air. These four factors act together and make weather, although all weather is the result of the action of the Sun, because heat comes from the Sun.

Climate is unchanging weather. During the years the climate in this or that area is more or less the same. For example, the climate of much of northern and central Africa is hot and dry. Much of Southeast Asia is hot and wet. The North and South Poles have cold climates. We think of the climate of these regions as never changing. But there is proof that the climate changes in the long run.

Annual tree rings prove it. Every year a tree grows at least a little. If there is much rain and a long summer, the tree produces a new light line. In cold or dry years the tree doesn’t grow much and its ring is a thin dark line. There are some very old trees that show that there have been some climatic changes.

The pine trees that grow in the White Mountains of California are some of the oldest living things on Earth. The scientists who study the age of trees from their annual rings have found one 4800 years old tree. This tree is still living and is quite good. Comparing the rings of an older dead tree, the scientists have found out what the climate has been for the last 9000 years.

There are places where dead trees have become stones. The rings of these trees can be studied too. So, scientists know now that the climate really changes but it takes a very long time.

Words to remember:

1. heat – тепло

2. moisture – влага

3. wind – ветер

4. although – хотя

5. annual ring – годичный слой

6. to prove – доказывать

7. pine tree – сосна

8. age – возраст

9. scientist – учёный

10. stone – камень

Exercise 1. Answer the questions:

1. What factors form the weather?

2. Where does heat come from?

3. What is climate?

4. What climate is there in your region?

5. What do annual rings prove?

6. Does a tree grow much during cold years?

7. Does the climate changes?

Exercise 2. Choose the proper word. Read and translate the sentence.

1. Temperature, moisture, wind and pressure of air are factors that make (heat, weather, region).

2. The climate of Africa is (hot, cold, mild).

3. Annual tree rings prove that climate (moves, grows, changes).

4. Every year a tree (grows, changes, shows) at least a little.

5. There are places where ( big, annual, dead) trees have become stones.

Exercise 3. Read, translate and learn the following sayings.

1. Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet. (Roger Miller)

2. Weather is a great metaphor for life – sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, and there’s nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella. (Pepper Giardino)

3. The trouble with weather forecasting is that it’s right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it. (Patrick Young)

4. Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. (John Ruskin)

TEXT 7

HOW A TREE LIVES

Trees are woody plants, growing with a single stem. They are the largest members of the plant world. Trees consist of three parts:

- the roots which hold the tree in place and take up from the soil water and mineral substances;

- the trunk or stem which supports the crown and supplies it with water and food from the roots;

- the crown. In this part the most important processes take place.

The materials upon which a tree feeds are derived from the soil and the air.

The roots of a tree absorb water from the soil and with it the necessary nutrition and elements of the soil. In the leaves the food necessary for the trees’ growth is manufactured. The raw food materials which reach the tree through the roots and the leaves are digested in the leaves. They are then sent to all living parts of the roots, stem and crown where they are either used at once or stored away for later use.

Trees usually start from seeds. The evergreens, for example pines, have cones from which naked, nutlike winged seeds fall. The cottonwood and other poplars have very tiny seeds with fine silky hairs that become airborne and often land many miles from the parent tree. Birds and mammals may transport seeds great distances, carrying such fuits as pits from cherries, beans from the locust; nut like the soft-shelled acorns, fleshy, winged seeds of maples, and hard-shelled hickory nuts and walnuts. These carriers plus the winds and floodwaters help account for the widespread distribution of most species.

Trees grow from the top and in diameter; the side growth is also called secondary growth. Wood has layers of growth which appear as circles around the centre.

Like all other plants and like animals trees breathe. The breathing is done through the leaves and the bark.

Words to remember:

1. stem – ствол

2. to consist of – состоять из

3. to hold – держать

4. to supply – обеспечивать, снабжать

5. to support – поддерживать

6. to reach – достигать

7. to manufacture – производить

8. to digest – переваривать, усваивать

9. root – корень

10. crown – крона