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1. a. The man was Grant Wood's dentist. The woman was the artist's
sister, Nan. It is said that Nan started the story that the painting
represented a farmer and daughter, since the dentist was 30 years older. First
shown in 1930, the painting gained Wood national attention.
2. b. The first movie was "The Egg & I," starring Fred
MacMurray and Claudette Colbert as Bob & Betty MacDonald. Ma & Pa Kettle
were neighbors, but became the main characters of a number of succeeding
films.
3. a. Egyptian hieroglyphics on the walls of buildings show
watermelons. The first recorded harvest was about 5,000 years ago. Watermelon
spread throughout Europe and Asia, and was brought to the Americas by the
earliest European colonists. Watermelon was common in Massachusetts in
1629.
4. b. Summer in Eastern Washington is hot, dry, and sunny, but water
for irrigation is available. This combination is ideal for many crops. The area
is well known for apples and wheat, as well as other tree fruit, vegetables,
hay, wine, and Walla Walla onions. Western Washington, where we live, has more
temperate winters, and is wetter and cooler in the summer. Most of the
raspberries grown in the US are grown in Western Washington. There are many
dairies in the area. In addition, you'll find lettuce, pumpkins, flower bulbs,
and many other crops. At The South 47 Farm, we grow more than 200 varieties of
crops.
5. b. Superman crashed on Earth at the age of 2 or 3 and was adopted
by the Kents, who lived on a farm near Smallville.
6. b. The painting recognized as Van Gogh's first masterwork is
"The Potato Eaters," painted in 1885. In the painting, a poor family
of peasants sits at a meal of potatoes. This was Van Gogh's first attempt at
painting a large group of people. Rather than paint a romantic or pessimistic
view, Van Gogh intended to show individuals worn by hard work, but enjoying each
other's company and the fruits of their labor.
7. b. The use of the repeating phrase, "Here a Bae, there a Bae,
everywhere a Bae . . . " was used in the comic opera Wonders in the Sun,
or The Kingdom of the Birds, published in London in 1706, but Old MacDonald
was not mentioned, and we have no record of the tune. The first known printing
of the music and tune was titled "Ohio" in Tommy's Tunes,
published in London in 1917. In that version, the farmer's name was Old
MacDougal.
8. b. The heat in peppers is mostly in the seeds and the white veins.
Since peppers, large and small, contain about the same number of seeds, the
smaller ones tend to be hotter. Peppers probably originated in what is now
Bolivia, but they spread rapidly. There is evidence that 7,000 years ago,
peppers were cultivated near the current site of Mexico City.
9. a. Washington is on the $1 bill. Jefferson is on the $2 bill. Both
Washington and Jefferson devoted considerable time and attention to their farms,
working to improve techniques and importing new crop varieties and breeds of
farm animals. The other bills are: Lincoln, $5; Hamilton, $10; Jackson, $20;
Grant, $50; and Franklin, $100.
10. a. True! Wild watermelons from Africa have become common in dry
meadows in the Kaweah Oaks Preserve and the Kaweah River Delta region in
California. In Africa, the wild melons may be either sweet or bitter. You must
first carefully taste test the watermelon before you start munching it down. The
flesh of a wild watermelon is white.
11. b. Worker bees live 6-8 weeks. Bees spend the first two weeks of
their adult lives in the hive. The following 4-6 weeks they spend outside in
search of nectar for the hive. During the summer, more than 1,000 bees may die
every day, and must be replaced with new bees. Bees born in the late fall
survive through the winter.
12. b. In 1791, George Washington sent letters to farmers in what is
now Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of
Columbia to ask about land values, taxes, crops, yields, and livestock prices.
The first comprehensive national survey was not taken until 1840. Sharing this
information helps farmers make decisions, and reduces some of the uncertainity
of farming.
13. b. Eggplant was probably first cultivated in India about 4,000
years ago. The Moors brought eggplant to Spain in the 1100s. The Italians were
growing eggplant by the 1400s.
14. a. Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma Moses) switched to painting when
her arthritis forced her to give up embroidery. An art dealer discovered her
paintings for sale in a grocery store and purchased a number of them. The
one-woman show of her work that he put on in his gallery in New York city gained
her national recognition. Her untrained style, called primitive, and her themes
of rural life captured the admiration of many.
15. a. In the late 1700s, Thomas Jefferson brought the recipe back
from England, calling them "potatoes fried in the French manner." He
had them served at the White House in 1802. John Adams then criticized Jefferson
for "putting on airs."
16. a. In "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck tells the
story of the Joad family and the many farmers who became refugees of the Dust
Bowl in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, and Texas in the late 1930s. The
Dust Bowl was caused by a combination of a seven-year drought and harmful
farming techniques. Immigrants to the area used the farming techniques they had
used in the humid eastern US. Intensive wheat growing exhausted the soil.
Overgrazing by livestock stripped the soil of cover. Economic hardships of the
Great Depression led many farmers to work the land even harder and avoid
investing in conservation techniques. Creation of larger farms and mechanization
with larger farm equipment meant many farm workers lost their jobs. When the
drought came, the soil turned to dust and blew away. One-quarter of the
population left the area.
17. a. A prolific songwriter and performer, Taj Mahal grew up as Henry
St. Claire Fredericks in Springfield Massachusetts, but also worked on a farm
and earned a degree in animal husbandry at the University of Massachusetts.
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