Vocabulary Notes from Reading Skills

Rough farmland means very rocky or with trees and not ready to plant.

Back-breaking work means very heavy or very hard work.

Crops are what we plant, such as grain or tomatoes or corn.

Land is cleared when we clean it up and make it ready for our crops. A section can be a large area of some acres of land. It is a measure.

When something is formed it is made into a shape. We can make a form to build our house foundation.

A patch of land. An example of a patch would be a small place to have a garden called a garden patch.

He uprooted the trees, which means he pulled them out of the ground.

The tree bears fruit, which means it grows some fruit.

The apple had mealy flesh, which means it is like meal (a kind of large grain) and dissolves in pieces in your mouth.

Texture is how something feels to the touch. For example, a rabbit’s fur has a soft texture.

He dropped his spade. A spade is a tool (a special shovel) used for digging and it has a sharp pointed shape. A small tool to use with one hand is called a trowel.

Upper Canada is now called Ontario. Before Confederation we had the name Canada, but not the country.

My son is far-seeing, which means he thinks about the future and makes good plans for it.

We can graft this cutting. A tree can have a piece of another tree joined to it. This action is called grafting. The name of the piece we use is the cutting.

He persuaded me. I agreed with what he told me.

The original man was Adam. The original woman was Eve.

A monument is a structure that is made to honour something, such as a statue or a war hero.