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  3. (1)George Williams, one of Scottsdale’s last remaining cowboys, has been rai

(1)George Williams, one of Scottsdale’s last remaining cowboys, has been rai

游客2024-11-06  48
问题     (1)George Williams, one of Scottsdale’s last remaining cowboys, has been raising horses and cattle on his 120 acres for 20 years. The cattle go to the slaughterhouse, the horses to rodeos. But Mr. Williams is stomping mad.
    (2)His problems began last year when dishonest neighbours started to steal his cattle. Then other neighbours, most of them newcomers, took offence at his horses roaming on their properties. Arizona is an open-range state: livestock have the right of way and there is no fine for trespassing. This has been on the law books since 1913. Mr. Williams, who is elderly and in poor health, is angry that he has to spend so much of his time fielding complaints and retrieving stolen cattle.
    (3)Such grumbles are common in Arizona. The most recent Department of Agriculture census shows that 1,213 of Arizona’s 8,507 farms closed down in the past 5 years. Many cattlemen are moving out to more remote parts of the state. Arable farmers are struggling, too. Norman Knox, a respected grain fanner in Gilbert, recently learned that the owner of his rented land wants to build condos. Mr. Knox is 72 and has to move. He reckons that 50-70% of the farmland in Gilbert has been sold for development in the past two years.
    (4)This affects not only cowboys and farmers, but small businessmen too. For 20 years, Gary Young, owner of Gilbert’s Higley Feed, sold range blocks and cubes to cattlemen who fed them to cattle during the droughts. But 18 months ago he switched to selling pet food and baby chicks to new home-owners.
    (5)Doc Lane is an executive at the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association, a trade group. He says Arizona’s larger ranch owners are making decent profits from selling. It is the smaller players who are the victims of rising land values, higher mortgages and stiffer city council rules. What happens all too often is that people move in next to a farm because they think the land pretty. But soon they start complaining to the council. In Mr. Williams’s case it was the horses that annoyed them. Other newcomers don’t like the noise, the pesticides and the smell of manure.
    (6)Locals worry about the precious, dwindling cowboy culture. Arizona’s tourism boards like to promote a steady interest in all things cowboy and western. Last year more British and German tourists came than usual, and many of them were looking precisely for that. Arizona’s Dude Ranch Association fills its $350-a-night luxury ranches most of the year; roughly a third of the guests are European.
    (7)Many of the ranchers themselves see all this tourism as a cheeky attempt to commercialize a real and vanishing culture. In Prescott, estate agents promote "American Ranch-style" homes with posters of backlit horse riders. On the other side of the street is Whiskey Row, a famous strip of historic cowboy bars. But in Mart’s Saloon on Saturday night, real cattlemen could not be found.
    (8)Farm folk like Mr. Knox and Mr. Williams are weighing up their options. Many will migrate to remoter places where land is cheaper and not crowded with city people. Younger ones take on side-jobs as contractors and are cattlehands part-time. Older cowboys aren’t sure what to do. [br] According to the passage, which of the following facts is NOT responsible for the moving of farmers?
选项 A、Higher price of the land.
B、Government rules with more restrictions.
C、Heavier burden of the mortgages.
D、Disappearing of the cowboy culture.
答案 D
解析 题目询问农牧民搬迁的原因，D“牛仔文化的消失”不是原因，而是结果，故选D。第5段第3句列举了地价上涨、房货抵押增高、政府规定日趋严格这三点原因，A、B、C三项是对原文的同义替换。
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