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 Angle at Gettysburg is inextricable from an awareness of the mighty rebellion that reached that far and no farther. Most major historic sites and shrines in the Basin have received protection of one sort or another. The core portions of the great Civil War battlegrounds are owned and maintained by the National Park Service, as are Wakefield and Harpers Ferry and the C. & O. Canal and other such places. States, municipalities, organizations, and individuals have saved many others from destruction and decay and sometimes have built them back to what they were--Mount Vernon, Stratford, Gunston Hall, Fort Frederick and one or two of the smaller bastions that George Washington helped to set up against the Indians in the western Basin, and scores of other mansions and cabins and patches of historic soil. There is still a wide sense of the past's weight among a population of whom many were born where they live and intend to die, and whose ancestors did so too. This sense is shared by many other people who move to the region, and in a few spots--mainly again in Virginia--it has led to a degree of protection for the appearance of whole towns or historic districts, as in Loudoun County with its admirable scenic regulations. Under the Historic Preservation Act of 1966, states are conducting surveys of such assets and studying means of encouraging their preservation. But funds are still short even for the Federal part of the program, and thus only individuals or accidents are still partially guarding some fine old places--Shepherdstown, West Virginia, for instance, or in Maryland the towns of Sharpsburg, Middletown, and Burkittsville--against adornment with chrome and neon and fake-stone veneer. Even in these places, some changes for the worse are taking place. Troubles and threats