question: Why Are Pig Farmers Still Using Growth-Promoting Drugs?

It's one of the most controversial practices in agriculture: feeding small amounts of antibiotics to animals in order to make them grow faster. But what if the drugs don't even work very well? There's some good evidence that they don't, at least in pigs. They used to deliver a boost in growth, but that effect has disappeared in recent years or declined greatly. The reason for this is interesting and even paradoxical. Researchers think the antibiotics used to work by suppressing low-grade infections. In recent years, however, pork producers found other ways to accomplish the same thing through improved hygiene . As a result, the drugs have become largely superfluous -- yet many farmers still use them.

To understand how this happened, you have to step back in time, says Steve Dritz, a specialist in pig nutrition at Kansas State University. Sixty years ago, when antibiotics were new, "people started treating animals, and feeding [the antibiotics], and finding that they had increased growth rates and feed efficiencies," he says. Nursery-age pigs, for instance, grew 12 to 15 percent faster with antibiotics. The animals also needed less feed to reach full weight. Other studies showed similar results in chickens and cattle. In the 1980s, a new set of studies found similar effects. So the growth-promoting effects of antibiotics became standard practice among meat producers.

Fast forward to the 1990s. Dritz was starting his career as a scientist at Kansas State University, and pork production was changing dramatically.

Previously, pigs were born and raised in one barn or in several barns close together. This meant infections could easily pass from one generation to the next, the way that kids share germs between their friends on the playground and their parents at home. Under the new system, when piglets are weaned, they move to a whole different place. That new site is carefully scrubbed and free of disease.

Craig Rowles, who runs a large swine operation in Carroll, Iowa, shows me one such room. There's not a piglet in sight. "This room just got completely washed and disinfected, and now it's going to sit here and dry for a while," he says.

A whole group of pigs will come in here together, and later they will move out together to yet another site. "That group of pigs will stay together until they go to market," Rowles says.

The groups are kept strictly separated from each other. If workers move between the groups, they first have to change their boots.

When farmers adopted multisite production, it cut down on disease -- and pigs actually grew faster.
1. what are they feeding to the pigs
2. what were they used for at first
****
answer: 1. antibiotics
2. unknown

question: CHAPTER XI.

In the little dining-room of the cottage at the Green Sulphur Springs sat that evening Lawrence Croft, a perturbed and angry, but a resolute man. He had been quite a long time coming to the conclusion to propose to Roberta March, and now that he had made up his mind to do so, even in spite of certain convictions, it naturally aroused his indignation to find himself suddenly stopped short by such an insignificant person as Mr Brandon, a gentleman to whom, in this affair, he had given no consideration whatever. The fact that the lady wished to see him added much to his annoyance and discomfiture. He had no idea what reason she had for desiring an interview with him, but, whatever she should say to him, he intended to follow by a declaration of his sentiments. He had not the slightest notion in the world of giving up the prosecution of his suit; but, having been requested not to come to Midbranch, what was he to do? He might write to Miss March, but that would not suit him. In a matter like this he would wish to adapt his words and his manner to the moods and disposition of the lady, and he could not do this in a letter. When he wooed a woman, he must see her and speak to her. To any clandestine approach, any whispered conversation beneath her window, he would give no thought. Having been asked by the master of the house not to go there, he would not go; but he would see her, and tell his love. And, more than that, he would win her.
1. Who was at the cottage?
2. Where was it?
3. What part of the cottage was he in?
4. Was he happy?
5. Why?
6. At what?
7. By who?
8. What had he decided to do?
9. to who?
10. Who wanted an interview?
11. Was he thinking about giving up?
12. Where could he not go?
13. Who lived there?
14. What did he not want to do?
15. Why?
16. What was his plan?
17. And after that, what was he planning?
18. Had he decided to propose in a short time?
19. Had he thought about a different approach?
****
answer: 1. Lawrence Croft
2. Green Sulphur Springs
3. The dining-room.
4. No.
5. He was perturbed and angry.
6. He had been stopped short.
7. Mr Brandon
8. Propose.
9. Roberta March.
10. Miss March.
11. No.
12. Midbranch
13. Miss March.
14. Write to her.
15. He wanted to adapt his words to her mood.
16. To see her.
17. Tell oer of his love.
18. No.
19. No.

question: CHAPTER XXXIV

GUERRILLA WARFARE

"There are few pleasures," said Psmith, as he resumed his favourite position against the mantelpiece and surveyed the commandeered study with the pride of a householder, "keener to the reflective mind than sitting under one's own roof-tree. This place would have been wasted on Spiller; he would not have appreciated it properly."

Mike was finishing his tea. "You're a jolly useful chap to have by you in a crisis, Smith," he said with approval. "We ought to have known each other before."

"The loss was mine," said Psmith courteously. "We will now, with your permission, face the future for awhile. I suppose you realise that we are now to a certain extent up against it. Spiller's hot Spanish blood is not going to sit tight and do nothing under a blow like this."

"What can he do? Outwood's given us the study."

"What would you have done if somebody had bagged your study?"

"Made it jolly hot for them!"

"So will Comrade Spiller. I take it that he will collect a gang and make an offensive movement against us directly he can. To all appearances we are in a fairly tight place. It all depends on how big Comrade Spiller's gang will be. I don't like rows, but I'm prepared to take on a reasonable number of bravoes in defence of the home."

Mike intimated that he was with him on the point. "The difficulty is, though," he said, "about when we leave this room. I mean, we're all right while we stick here, but we can't stay all night."
1. Were did he lean?
2. What was he looking at?
3. Who was drinking a hot beverage?
4. What did he think of the first guy?
5. Were they aware of each other in the past?
6. Who are they facing now?
7. Who gave them the study?
8. What will Spiller do?
9. What will they have to fight them for?
10. Will they stay there all night?
****
answer:
1. Against the mantelpiece
2. The study
3. Mike
4. That he's useful
5. No
6. Spiller
7. Outwood
8. Collect a gang.
9. The study
10. No