8. Reread both texts about bonsai and answer the following questions:

1. What is bonsai? What is the literal meaning of bonsai?

2. Where did it originate?

3. When did it come to Japan? Why is it so meaningful for the Japanese culture?

4. Is bonsai a genetically dwarfed plant kept small by cruelty?

5. What trees are traditionally used in Bonsai?

6. Are there any strict rules to abide by?

7. What should a well-balanced bonsai design have?

8. How are bonsai kept small and trained?

9. How long can they live?

10. Are they primarily kept indoors or outdoors?

11. Is bonsai an art or horticulture?

12. Do you think everyone is able to grow a bonsai? Why/ why not?

1. Before you read

All the words below appear in the article about three plants – tobacco, sugar and cotton. Which words do you think go with which plant? Some go with more than one.

nouns: addict soil fabric silk plantation slaves lung cancer luxury

verbs: chain-smoke inhale ban sweeten refine chew harvest

2. Read the article and say which words from exercise 1 are in each text. What are the bad effects of each plant? What are the good effects? three plants that changed the world tobacco

For thousands of years tobacco was used by American Indians with no ill-effect. In the 16^th century it was brought to Europe. This early tobacco was mixed with soil and rather dirty. It was chewed or smoked in pipes only by men – women thought it smelly and disgusting.

It was first grown commercially in America in the 17^th century on slave plantations. In the 18^th century new technology refined tobacco and the first cigarettes were produced. By the 1880s huge factories were producing cigarettes which were clean and easy to smoke. Chain-smoking and inhaling became possible and by the middle of the 20^th century tobacco addicts, both men and women, were dying of lung cancer in great numbers.

Nowadays cigarette smoking is banned in many places, especially in the USA. But until 1820 tobacco was America’s main export, and still today their tobacco industry makes over $4.2 billion a year.

SUGAR

Sugar cane was grown in India thousands of years ago. In Roman times it was known in Europe as a great luxury, and it was rare and expensive for many centuries after that. In 1493 Columbus took a sugar plant with him to the West Indies, where it grew so well that huge plantations were started by Europeans and worked on by slaves. The slaves were shipped across the Atlantic from Africa, packed sometimes one on top of the other in chains, on a journey that took six weeks. Many died. The empty ships then carried the sugar back to Europe. So much money was made that sugar was known as ‘white gold’.

Sugar is used to sweeten food and make sweets and chocolate. It is addictive, but unnecessary. By the 16^th century the English were the greatest sugar-eaters in history. Elizabeth I lost all her teeth because she ate so much of it.

COTTON

Cotton has been grown for over five thousand years in places as far apart as Mexico, China, Egypt, and India. It was first planted in America in 1607. Before 1800 cotton was a great luxury, more expensive than silk, because so many workers were needed to pick it. However, a huge increase in the number of slaves in the American South resulted in much greater cotton production and a fall in the price. This, and the new technology of the industrial revolution, made cotton the cheapest fabric in history. By 1820 cotton was making more money for the USA than tobacco, and more money worldwide than sugar.

The American Civil War of 1861- 1865 was fought because the Southern States wanted to form a separate country, so that they could continue to keep slaves on their cotton plantations. Slavery was banned in the Northern States in 1808. 500,000 soldiers were killed in the war.