Read the text. Try to remember the names of different machinery and implements and their functions. Fill in the table after the text.

Agricultural machines are used to till the soil and to plant, cultivate and harvest crops. Since ancient times when cultures first began cultivating plants people have used tools to help them grow and harvest crops. They used pointed tools to dig and keep soil loosened, and sharp, knife-like objects to harvest ripened crops. Modifications of these early implements led to the development of small hand tools that are still used in gardening, such as spade, hoe, rake, trowel, and larger implements, such as plough and larger rakes that are drawn by humans, animals or simple machines.

Modern agricultural implements adapted to large-scale farming methods are usually powered by the diesel- or petrol-fuelled internal-combustion engines. The most important machine of modern agriculture is the tractor. It provides locomotion for many other implements and can furnish power via its power shaft for the operation of machines drawn behind a tractor. The power shaft of a tractor can also be set up to drive belts that operate the equipment, such as feed grinders, pumps, and electric-power generators. Small implements, such as portable irrigators, may be powered by individual motors.

Many types of implements have been developed for growing crops. They are implements for breaking ground, planting, weeding, fertilizing and combating pests. Ground is broken by ploughs to prepare the seed-bed. A plough consists of blade-like ploughshare that cuts, lifts, turns and pulverizes the soil. Modern tractor ploughs are usually equipped with two or more ploughshares so that a wide area of ground can be broken at a single sweep. Harrows are used to smooth the ploughed land and sometimes to cover seeds and fertilizers with earth. Rollers break up clods of soil to improve the aeration of the soil and its capacity for taking in water.

Some cereal crops are still planted by broadcasting seeds, that is by scattering the seeds over a wide area with broadcast sowers. Specialized implements called planters or drills are necessary for sowing crops that are planted in rows, such as maize. Fertilizers can be distributed during winter or before seeding time. They are commonly distributed together with seeds by drills or planters. Manure is distributed most efficiently by a manure spreader.

After crops have begun to grow a cultivator is used to destroy weeds, loosen and aerate the soil. Sometimes farmers use herbicides applied in the form of a spray or as granules for weed control and insecticides for pest control. A variety of mechanical spraying and dusting equipment is used to spread chemicals on crops and fields. Nowadays farmers try to apply alternative forms of pest control by using crop rotation or introducing organisms that damage or kill the pests but leave the crops unharmed. Some crops are being genetically engineered to be more resistant to pests.

Most cereals are harvested by using a combine, a machine that removes the heads or ears, beats off the grain kernels, cleans the grain and accumulates it in the attached grain tank. Hay harvesting usually requires several steps. First the grass is cut close to the ground with a mower. After drying in the sun most hay is baled. Then the pick-up baler lifts the hay to a conveyor that carries it to a baling chamber. A machine called a field chopper cuts down green hay which is brought and stored in a silo. Specialized machinery is used to harvest large root crops, such as potato and sugar beet, and to harvest fruits and vegetables. They are fruit-pickers and vegetable harvesters.

The use of agricultural machinery substantially reduces the amount of human labour needed for growing crops.

Agricultural tools, implements, machinery for planting	Agricultural tools, implements, machinery for cultivating crops	Agricultural tools, implements, machinery for tilling the soil	Agricultural tools, implements, machinery for harvesting crops

Practice 1. Summarize the text by listing:

- the main implements and agricultural machines used in farming;

- the functions of agricultural machinery and tools.

Practice 2. Re-read the text to find out which of its paragraphs deals with:

- functions of the basic tilling implements;

- the tractor as the most important machine in agriculture;

- the purpose of using agricultural machinery and implements;

- early agricultural tools;

- the function of cultivating machines;

- planting and distributing fertilizers machines;

- harvesting machines.

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	\|	Practice 3. Re-read the text again to find out which of the following statements are true and which are false.

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