The Future of Dairy Farming: Robot Milkers
The future has arrived at a dairy(乳品的) farm in about an hour by car from WashingtonD.C. A robot is milking cows. It is milking time at Woodbourne Creamery in Mt. Airy, Maryland. The cows are standing in line for a turn at the robot.
John Fendrick is the owner of the farm. He inspects the progress of the animals by looking at a computer screen. That is all he has to do."The door opens up, they walk in, and they get milked. The door opens up, and they walk out."
The robot does all the work. It uses a laser to find each teat (乳头) — the place on the cow where the milk comes out. The robot then cleans the teat and connects a milking tube toit. The robot also tests the milk for possible contamination (污染). If it finds a problem, it rejects the milk. When the amount of milk coming out of the cow slows, the machine knows to stop, and sends the cow on its way.
Milking robots are becoming popular among dairy farmers in the United States, Europe and Australia. John Fendrick says the robots have changed life on a dairy farm."You are given the freedom back. So it allows me or the people working for me to actually do other things on the farm."
Most dairy farmers must milk their cows two times a day, early in the morning and late at night. The animals are milked every day in good weather or bad. But Mr Fendrick’s cows do not follow such a schedule. They stay in the field until they want to be milked by the robot. Some of them come to be milked in the middle of the night.
Mr Fendrick doesn’t even need to be there to watch his cows being milked. He can watch from his telephone. He can learn when each cow was milked and how much she produced. He can also learn if a cow has not been milked for a long time.
The cow milking robot is not low-cost technology. Mr Fendrick paid more than $150,000 for it. But he notes, paying someone to milk the cows is also costly."In three years, I will have paid off the difference with this, and I don’t have to be the person who’s always on call to milk. The fact is that we have a life, and our cows are able to function without us — to us, it’s well worth the money."
And he says that is a good thing."I don’t like to milk."With the robot, he can turn his attention to other things. He gets about 475 liters of milk a day, and he never has to touch a cow.
50．What does the underlined sentence mean?
A. Robot milkers have begun to be used to milk cows on a dairy farm.
B. A newly built farm is about an hour’s drive from Washington D.C.
C. Dairy farms in Washington D.C. have experienced rapid development.
D. People can see robots milking cows in the near future in Washington D.C.
51．Which of the following shows the correct process of the robot milking cows?
a. cleaning the teat b. testing the milk
c. letting cows go d. rejecting or accepting the milk
A.a, d, b, c B.b, a, d, c C.b, d, a, c D.a, b, d, c
52．What does the underlined word"it"in Paragraph 3 refer to?
A.The laser. B.The robot. C.The teat. D.The cow.
53．According to Paragraph 5, robot milkers .
A.may help cows produce more milk
B.can milk cows at any time daily
C.follow a strict schedule to milk cows
D.only milk cows in good weather
54．The reason why Mr Fendrick doesn’t even have to be on the farm is that .
A.he can watch and learn from his telephone
B.he has completely been replaced by robots
C.robots will tell him all by telephone
D.he is not the person on call to milk