Quite a few fruit varieties also originated in China.For example,peach is one of the old fruit varieties in China.Peach trees were spread to Iran through Middle Asia during the first and second centuries B.C.,and then to Greece through Iran,and further to some other European countries.In the second half of the 19th century,Japan and the United States introduced honey peach and flat peach from China and bred new varieties.Sweet orange was introduced from China to Lisbon,Portugal,in 1945,and then it was grown on a large scale in other Western countries.And now it has been spread all over the world.There you see the tremendous contribution the agriculture of China brought to the world.(491)
forefrontn最前線；前沿
paddyn水稻
transplantv移植
derivev獲得；源於
dialectn方言
originatev發源；源自
pakchoin青菜；小白菜
Brassica Chinensisn青菜；小白菜
Brassica Pekinensisn大白菜
outputn產量；輸出量
tremendousadj.大量的；巨大的
ⅠTranslate the following sentences into Chinese.
1As the four major wellknown inventionscompass,papermaking,letterpress printing and gunpowdertraditional Chinese agriculture also made great contributions to the development of human civilization.
2As time went on,the system further developed and became more perfect on the basis.
3China also took the lead in silkworm raising and silk production.
4Peach trees were spread to Iran through Middle Asia during the first and second centuries B.C.,and then to Greece through Iran,and further to some other European countries.
5Japan and the United States introduced honey peach and flat peach from China and bred new varieties.
ⅡFill in the blanks with the correct words from the passage.
1.
2China is also the world pioneer intea.
3The influence of Chinese agriculture isin the world.
4Two kinds of peach were derived by the United State are.
5The output of
Four Great Inventions of Ancient China,namely,papermaking,compass,gunpowder,and printing are four inventions that have a great influence on the world.
It was recorded in the history of Later Han of the fifthcentury that Marquis Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty used inexpensive materials such as tree,hemp ends,tattered cloth,and broken fishing nets to make paper.This paper was used daily and was popularly known as Cai Lun Paper.From then on paper began to replace bamboo or wood strips and silk for writing.Whether or not Cai was the actual inventor of paper,he deserves the place of honor he has been given in Chinese history for his role in developing a material that revolutionized his country.For papermaking,Cai earnestly summarized predecessors experiences and improved the technology.Cai first used bark to make paper,which largely enhanced the papers output,because the barks material is richer than hemp.Cai Lun paper was light and thin,strong and inexpensive,and could be massproduced.Cais contribution is considered as one of the most important inventions in history,since it enabled China to develop its civilization much faster than with earlier writing materials (primarily bamboo).
The variety of material played an important role in papermaking development.Hemp and bark were the main material for making paper in the Han Dynasty,while during the Wei and Jin Dynasties,mulberry bark paper and cane paper were invented.With the development of society and culture,paper was widely used and the technique of papermaking continued to improve.Bamboo was used to make paper later in the Tang Dynasty as it grew rapidly in large quantities,and its long fiber,fine and strong,made it excellent papermaking material.However,the technique required to make bamboo paper was complicated.Therefore,people continued to look for other materials,experimenting with a mixture of different proportions of many kinds of plant fiber to produce different kinds of paper.
Chinese paper and papermaking were first introduced to Vietnam and Korea and then from Korea to Japan.The Japanese first used paper only for official records and documentation,but with the rise of Buddhism,demand for paper grew rapidly.Chinese papermakers also spread their craft into Central Asia and Persia (todays Iran),from which traders later introduced it into India.The first recorded use of paper in Samarkand (in todays Uzbekistan) dates from a battle in Turkestan (a name formerly used for Central Asia),where skilled Chinese artisans were taken prisoner and forced to make paper for their captors.From Samarkand,papermaking spread to Baghdad (Iraq) in the eighth century A.D.and into Damascus (Syria),Egypt,and Morocco by the tenth century.Many Chinese materials were not available to Middle Eastern papermakers,who instead used flax and other substitute fibers.It took nearly five hundred years for papermaking to reach Europe from Samarkand.Although the export of paper from the Middle East to the Byzantium Empire and other parts of Europe began in the tenth and eleventh centuries,the craft was apparently not established in Spain and Italy until the twelfth century.From then on,papermaking spread to Europe.(525)