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Page 4 · column 2 of 5 · from the scan, no model involved
40 YEARS AGO
August 5, 1965
The metric system, which is presently in use by about 90 per cent of the world’s population, is something which the United States ultimately must adopt if it is to keep pace with the modem times and remain competitive in world trade, said the Virginia Department of Agriculture. The United States is now certainly in the minority with its old system of weights and measures — many of which can be traced back to the size and length of an ancient kin’s arm or foot. The British government recently announced plans to begin the conversion to the metric system over a 10-year period. This changeover would leave America as the only major nation in the world still clinging to the outmoded system of pounds, pints, inches, acres, etc. VDA, and especially its weights and measures section, realizes that the metric system is something that cannot be brought about overnight or without careful study or planning... Industries that would be hardest hit by the conversion would be automotive, appliance, and machine tooling. In these, all dies, tools, machine parts and gauges would have to be changed to metric units, and millions of plans, diagrams and designs would have to be converted. Before Congress now is a bill to appropriate funds for an intensive study to determine the approximate cost of conversion.
Rep. John O. Marsh, Jr., has joined in urging Secretary of Labor, W. Willart Wirtz to give further consideration to the need of Virginia orchardists for adequate harvest labor. The 7th District congressman pointed out that, while Virginia fruit growers were exerting maximum efforts to recruit sufficient domestic labor, it was clear that not enough qualified pickers could be drawn to the orchards from
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