oitation, and the rolling terrain, intersected by stream
valleys and wooded ridges, has prevented much application of the massive
techniques of fence-to-fence cultivation that prevail on the "factory
farms" of the Midwest and West nowadays. The miles on miles of varied,
carefully managed fields and pastures, with fat herds and handsome old
stone houses and barns, nearly always against a backdrop of dark
mountains and with a pleasant river or creek running at hand, among
trees, have a potent storybook appeal that sticks in the memory of
anyone who ever saw them.

The long narrow valley down which the South Branch flows is similar on
its scale, as are many other arable strips and patches of the upper
Basin that remember Shawnee days and Civil War guerillas. Near
Washington, farms are waging a losing rearguard action against
speculation and sprawl, but in the Piedmont to the north and west of the
city lie some of the most pleasant rural landscapes in the United
States. Up the drainages of the Catoctin and the Monocacy north of the
Potomac, these are still functional landscapes, used mainly for dairy
farming. In Virginia they tend to be less so, for this is the hunt
country, where cosmopolitan gentry raise purebred stock on curried
pastures, ride to hounds in red coats on frosty mornings and by great
expenditure of money not garnered from crops or cattle have tastefully
restored and maintained whole neighborhoods of venerable estates, as
well as some superb old towns like Waterford, in traditional dignified
beauty.

As these people have grasped--and others like them scattered throughout
the Basin--most of the pull of farming landscapes and old houses and
towns is nostalgic, rooted in a sense of the past and of the way the
look and feel of a stone fence or a portico or a boxwood hedge can fill
out understanding of people who were there long long before. This is
what has been called "the scenery of association," and it is more deeply
ingrained in the Potomac country than in newer parts of the nation,
where "scenery" is most likely to denote the aspect of wild and natural
places. With a history going back deep into the 1600's and long
occupation by Indians before that, the Basin in many places has
archaeological layers of such meaning. It tugs powerfully at the
imagination of anyone with a sense of human continuity, and is woven in
with the natural framework of things, as for instance the grove of
chestnut oaks in the Bloody