Roger “Bud” Bulpitt is supervising the unloading of a large truck of ground, pressure-cooked chicken feathers
and blood at his South Norwalk, Connecticut, dirt factory—or blending plant, as he prefers to call it. “What we make
is soil,” says 52-year-old Bud. As his father, Stan “the Organic Man” Bulpitt, liked to say, “Nature takes a hundred
years to make a one-inch layer of topsoil, while we do it every day.” Last April Stan was laid to rest at the age of 76. He was a friendly, feisty man, something of a muckraker in his
personal campaign against those who mistreat the land. Appropriately, he will spend the afterlife as he spent this one:
consumed by earth. He leaves his sons Bud and David, 34—soil brothers, as it were—to carry on his work. Now they
run the family terra firm.
Why would anyone need to manufacture dirt? Lots of the stuff seems to be already lying around. “Not so,” says
David, who has a degree in plant and soil science from the University of Massachusetts. “Much of the Northeast and
parts of the West are dirt poor. Like other things we always thought we’d have plenty of—clean water, ozone,
redfish—fertile soil has become a victim of the twentieth century.”
【題組】17 What happened to Stan “the Organic Man” at the age of 76?
(A) He retired.
(B) He died.
(C) He was laid off.
(D) He no longer manufactured dirt.