2.6 Answer the questions to the text.

1. What is necessary to insure pollination?

2. What soil is ideal for apple growing?

3. What methods are used for pest control?

4. What can you advise to prevent rabbit damage?

2.7 Read the text without a dictionary. Try to catch the main idea. Apple cultivars

There are more than 7,500 known cultivars of apples. Different cultivars are available for temperate and subtropical climates. Most of these cultivars are bred for eating fresh, though some are cultivated specifically for cooking or producing cider. Cider apples are typically too tart and astringent to eat fresh, but they give the beverage a rich flavour that dessert apples cannot. Commercially popular apple cultivars are soft but crisp. Other desired qualities in modern commercial apple breeding are a colourful skin, ease of shipping, lengthy storage ability, high yields, disease resistance. Modern apples are generally sweeter than older cultivars, as popular tastes in apples have varied over time. Old cultivars are often oddly shaped and have a variety of textures and colours. Some find them to have a better flavour than modern cultivators, but may have other problems which make them commercially unviable, such as low yield, liability to disease, or poor tolerance for storage or transport. A few old cultivars are still produced on a large scale, but many have been kept alive by home gardeners and farmers that sell directly to local markets. Many unusual and locally important cultivars with their own unique taste and appearance exist; apple conservation campaigns have sprung up around the world to preserve such local cultivars from extinction.

Text 3 Pear

1. Read the following international words and translate them: standard, urban, direction, basis, minimal, bacterial, potential, symptoms, action, perforate, plastic, accelerate, neutral, container.

2. Read the following words, paying attention to the pronunciation: patience, bushel, advantage, anchor, primary, suffice, favorable, major, waxy, yank, allow, exchange, observant, resistance.

3.3 Translate the following word-combinations into Russian: pear varieties, pest control, garden soil, fruit trees, blight symptoms, skin color, humidity level, room temperature, insect pollination.

4. Read and translate the text with the help of a dictionary.

Pear trees require patience, knowledge and skill to grow well. Despite the effort required, pear trees in particular remain a popular addition to many home gardens. Pear trees, as a rule, require cross-pollination by another pear variety to produce a large crop. Like apples, pears are insect pollinated.

Standard rootstocks may cause the tree to grow 20 or more feet tall. Dwarfing rootstocks reduce tree size by up to 75%, so that a tree may be only 8, 12, or 15 feet tall when mature. Standard trees can yield up to 10 bushels of fruit per tree. Dwarf trees are likely to produce 2 to 3 bushels per tree.

Choosing a pear tree on a dwarfing rootstock has many benefits. Because the trees are shorter than standard trees, pruning, pest control, thinning, and harvest are all simplified. Trees grafted to dwarfing rootstocks require only 3 to 4 years to begin bearing fruit, while standard-sized trees may require eight years or more. Because the trees are also proportionally narrower in spread, you may be able to fit two or three trees into a small space, making them a better choice for the urban landscape.

There are, of course, advantages to standard sized trees as well. Standard rootstocks are more tolerant to wetter and drier soils and are better anchored than are the dwarfing types. If these factors are of primary importance to you, and you have the space, then a standard sized tree may be your best choice.

Site Selection Pear trees require a site in full sun, so choose a spot where the sun shines directly for at least 8 hours each day.

Any good garden soil should suffice, but avoid areas where water stands for several hours after a rain. Good drainage is important to the health of fruit trees. The pH of the soil should be slightly acidic to neutral, about 6 to 7.

How much space do you need for pear trees? For standard trees, allow 20-25 feet in all directions from buildings or other trees. Allow 12-15 feet for semi-dwarf trees and 8-10 feet for dwarf types. For best pollination, plant your apple or pear trees within 100 feet of each other.

Mineral Nutrition Once established, a pear tree planted on a favorable site in properly prepared soil should thrive with minimal fertilization. Nitrogen is normally the only mineral nutrient that needs to be added on an annual basis.

Pear Pests Fire blight easily ranks as the major pest of pears. This bacterial disease has the potential to spread quickly and damage—or even kill—unprotected trees. However, in a home garden situation, the observant gardener can keep this problem from getting out of hand. The best solution of course is to choose varieties with some resistance to the disease. If fire blight symptoms are spotted, infested branches should be promptly removed.

Harvest and Storage The most common mistake novice pear growers make is to let the fruit ripen on the tree. Fruit that ripens on the tree ends up gritty and unpleasant. Instead, fruit is picked at a "physiologically mature" stage and then is ripened indoors. A pear fruit is ready to harvest when:

- the skin color turns from dark green to a lighter yellowish green;

- the lenticels (dots) change from white to brown (not in all varieties);

- the skin develops a smoother, waxy look and feel.

To harvest a pear, gently take the fruit in the palm of your hand and lift and twist in a single motion. Avoid pulling or yanking the fruit; such an action may well remove the small woody "spur" to which the stem of the fruit is attached, taking with it next year's flower buds.

Harvested pears that will not be eaten within a few days should be promptly refrigerated. Place the fruit in perforated plastic bags or a loosely covered container. This will help increase humidity levels around the fruits while allowing the exchange of gases that accelerate ripening. To fully ripen the fruit, remove it from refrigeration and allow it to sit at room temperature for a few days. When the fruit turns a more golden color and the flesh at the stem end yields to thumb pressure, the fruit is ready to eat.

4. Find synonyms for the following words (See the text): need, species, quantity, moist, main, place, ripe, correctly, quickly, connect.

5. Say if these statements are false or true:

The PH of the soil should be slightly alkaline.

A pear fruit should be picked at immature stage and ripened indoors.

Phosphorous is the only nutrient that a pear tree needs.

Standard trees require 25 feet in all directions from other trees.