[ti:Winter Gives a Hard Chop to Washington's Cherry Trees] [ar:Mario Ritter] [al:Agriculture Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English [00:03.05]Agriculture Report. [00:05.20]Official snowfall records [00:07.54]for Washington date back [00:09.73]to eighteen eighty-four. [00:12.28]By early February, [00:14.02]this winter had already [00:15.91]broken them with [00:17.40]one hundred forty-two [00:19.06]centimeters of snow measured. [00:21.59]But the recent storms that [00:24.33]buried the city broke [00:26.13]more than seasonal records. [00:27.80]Heavy snow and high winds [00:30.79]damaged some of Washington's [00:33.00]famous cherry trees. [00:35.21]In the spring, crowds [00:39.04]expect a beautiful show [00:40.68]as the trees blossom [00:42.23]along the edge of the Tidal Basin [00:44.51]next to the Jefferson Memorial. [00:47.27]Workers have been busy [00:49.36]picking up broken branches, [00:51.00]some as thick as fifteen centimeters. [00:54.56]A few trees have lost their canopies. [00:58.49]Peak blooming, when the trees [01:01.28]are in full flower, [01:02.87]may be delayed a little. [01:04.86]But the National Park Service says [01:07.70]people can expect the usual show [01:10.43]of pink and white flowers. [01:13.12]This year's National Cherry Blossom Festival [01:17.20]is set for March twenty-seventh [01:19.94]through April fourth. [01:21.78]Twelve kinds of cherry trees [01:24.76]grow around the Tidal Basin. [01:26.77]The first trees were a gift [01:29.40]from Japan in nineteen twelve. [01:32.61]The Japanese later sent two more [01:35.99]gifts of cherry trees. [01:38.23]Cherry trees are valued [01:40.73]for their flowers but also [01:43.24]for their wood and their fruit. [01:46.18]The United States and Turkey [01:48.74]are leading producers of cherries, [01:51.58]though not all cherry trees [01:53.69]produce fruit. [01:54.93]The two major kinds of cherries [01:58.38]are sweet and sour. Sour cherries, [02:02.28]sometimes called tart cherries, [02:04.49]are used in foods and drinks. [02:07.85]The state of Michigan [02:10.37]is the nation's top producer [02:12.41]of sour cherries. [02:14.23]Washington -- not the city, [02:16.97]but the state in the Pacific Northwest [02:19.60]-- is the top producer of sweet cherries. [02:23.34]Now speaking of Washington [02:26.08]and cherry trees, [02:27.62]maybe you have heard the story [02:29.93]about America's first president. [02:32.07]As a boy George Washington [02:35.40]supposedly told his father: [02:37.54]"I cannot tell a lie. [02:39.48]I chopped down the cherry tree." [02:42.65]Is the story true? [02:45.14]"Probably not," says the Web site [02:48.13]for his home at Mount Vernon, Virginia. [02:50.97]Monday was George Washington's birthday. [02:55.68]But not much is known about his childhood. [02:59.26]So it seems that a biography [03:02.35]written shortly after his death [03:04.44]included several invented stories [03:07.62]about his early life. [03:09.96]These were meant to show [03:12.35]where he got his heroic qualities. [03:14.84]Children then learned the story [03:17.96]of the cherry tree in a school book, [03:21.16]and it became rooted in popular history. [03:24.99]And that's the VOA Special English [03:28.67]Agriculture Report, [03:30.62]written by Jerilyn Watson. [03:33.27]Transcripts, MP3s and captioned videos [03:38.59]of our reports can be found at 51voa.com. [03:45.48]You can also practice your English [03:48.90]by posting comments. [03:50.70]I'm Mario Ritter.