2024年5月19日发(作者：comprehensively)

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托福阅读TPO23(试题+答案+译文)第2篇:Seventeenth-Century Dutch

Agriculture

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【1】Agriculture and fishing formed the primary sector of the economy

in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Dutch agriculture was

modernized and commercialized new crops and agricultural techniques

raised levels of production so that they were in line with market demands,

and cheap grain was imported annually from the Baltic region in large

quantities. According to estimates, about 120,000 tons of imported grain

fed about 600,000 people: that is about a third of the Dutch population.

Importing the grain, which would have been expensive and time

consuming for the Dutch to have produced themselves, kept the price of

grain low and thus stimulated individual demand for other foodstuffs and

consumer goods.

【2】Apart from this, being able to give up labor-intensive grain

production freed both the land and the workforce for more productive

agricultural divisions. The peasants specialized in livestock husbandry

and dairy farming as well as in cultivating industrial crops and fodder

crops: flax, madder, and rape were grown, as were tobacco, hops, and

turnips. These products were bought mostly by urban businesses. There