Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 1 of 4 · from the scan, no model involved
PEOPLE who don’t think “development” will make any difference to Virginia’s Piedmont should take a look at the five-year Census of Agriculture figures releasedby the U. S. Department of Commerce. The figures are revealing, and alarming—some 13.000 acres of farmland in Rappahannock County, lost; almost 18,000 acres in Fauquier County, lost; almost 18.000 in Culpeper, lost; and so on throughout the area.
Farmland lost to development is not land that can be readily returned to agriculture. Indeed, when it’s covered by highways, shopping centers and housing tracts, the chances are—at least within a historic sense that can be readily grasped—that it can never be returned to the production of food.
And this trend is going on at a time when the population is continuing to increase. Past momentums will insure that the population will continue to increase for decades, despite a heartening reduction in birth rates.
96.6%