Read the following text about changes in the Britsih countryside and decide what verb forms should be used in 1-10. -- From Hooves to Horsepower: Mechanisation and the British Countryside Adapted from Sally Coulthard’s A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects Had any child unwrapped a Dinky toy at Christmas, they .......... (1. INSTANTLY RECOGNISE) that they were holding a miniature of one of the country’s most iconic and up-to-date vehicles. Manufactured in England from 1934 until the late 1970s, Dinky toys trace the remarkable – and at times breathlessly rapid – evolution of twentieth-century transport. This particularly charming set, featuring a Land Rover and Horse Trailer and released in September 1960, would have provided hours of absorbed, joyful play. Yet for anyone interested in rural history, these equestrian models also capture a pivotal moment in the story of the countryside. In 1920, despite .......... (2. LOSE) a devastating number of horses during the First World War, more than a million working equines .......... (3. CAN FIND, STILL) across Britain. From pulling carts and ploughs to .......... (4. OPERATE) seed drills and wagons, horses continued to drive a significant share of British agriculture. Every farm depended on its drays and ponies for tasks ranging from soil preparation and sowing to haulage and harvesting. Yet within just four decades, the number of working horses had fallen to under one hundred thousand. By the 1960s, most horse owners kept their animals primarily for leisure and sport—an increasingly costly pastime that often required a horsebox, a type of vehicle that had itself only become widespread in the preceding decade. On the farm, equine labour .......... (5. SUPERSEDE, LARGELY) by two new powerhouses: the tractor and, as our Dinky model so neatly illustrates, the recently arrived Land Rover. Steam engines dominated the nineteenth century. For the first fifty years, they existed largely as static machines, supplying power for operations such as threshing. Although they could be moved around a farm or transported between sites, doing so required teams of horses. After 1850, however, self-propelled steam engines—or traction engines—began to emerge, eliminating the need for equine assistance altogether. Powerful though they were, traction engines proved slow and cumbersome, excelling mainly at hauling heavy loads or driving other machinery. They also demanded a constant supply of coal to keep them running. In 1892, American inventor John Froelich produced the first internal-combustion tractor, a petrol-driven machine equipped with both forward and reverse gears. It was not long before other manufacturers in the United States and Britain began to follow his lead. The shortage of agricultural labour during the First World War only accelerated the tractor’s rise in popularity. At the outbreak of the war, American automotive magnate Henry Ford—who .......... (6. GROW UP) on a farm and understood “the burden of farming”—designed his first mass-produced tractor, the Fordson. By 1917, Britain was importing these machines by the thousands. While the earliest tractors merely replicated the work of horses by towing wheeled ploughs, drills and other implements, a major breakthrough came in 1926, when Irish mechanic Harry Ferguson patented the three-point linkage (or three-point hitch). This simple yet ingenious system allowed ploughs and other equipment .......... (7. MOUNT) on three arms at the rear of the tractor, which the driver could raise, lower or even tilt using hydraulic pumps. The tractor itself also supported some—or all—of the implement’s weight. Not only .......... (8. MAKE – THIS INNOVATION) farming tasks significantly easier and safer, but it also greatly expanded the range of implements that .......... (9. CAN ATTACH) to a single machine. By the 1960s, the countryside vibrated to the sound of more than half a million tractors. While the 1914–18 conflict secured the future of the tractor, the Land Rover was a product of the Second World War. In 1948, the first Land Rover—later known as the Series I—made its debut at a motor show in Amsterdam. Maurice Wilks, chief engineer at the British car manufacturer Rover, had devised the concept for a practical agricultural vehicle. Inspired by his own farm, and in spite of struggling to source spare parts, maintaining ageing machinery and adapting existing tools, Wilks designed his own solution. The result combined the manoeuvrability of a car with the raw strength of a tractor. In post-war Britain, there was little appetite for extravagant, high-priced vehicles, and Wilks’s no-nonsense, four-wheel-drive “workhorse” quickly gained ground. Not merely .......... (10. GAIN – LAND ROVERS) popularity among farmers and other rural workers, but they also proved indispensable to military, police and rescue teams who routinely faced unmade, rugged roads. By 1976, the company had sold its one millionth Land Rover. The working horse, meanwhile, quietly faded into obscurity.
To complete these exercises registration and login is required.