The problem involved in this study was that of selecting and developing a record keeping system for students of vocational agriculture to use in their supervised farming programs. The study was made in Montgomery County, Virginia. It involved the close cooperation of the Montgomery County Agriculture Teachers Association, which is composed of teachers from the Riner, Shawsville, Christiansburg, and Blacksburg Agriculture Departments. Through this study it was hoped that a more effective system of record keeping could be provided for supervised farming programs of students enrolled in vocational agriculture. After two years of work with different types of records and record books, the record book developed was adopted by the Montgomery County Agriculture Teachers Association. This book was first used for keeping supervised farming records during the calendar year 1955. The Montgomery County Teachers felt that the record book satisfactorily met all the criteria they bad previously set up for keeping farm records and recommended it for continued use in their classes of vocational agriculture. In March, 1958, after three years use by vocational agriculture students in Montgomery County, teachers of the four agriculture departments were asked to evaluate die record book. The record book scored high on all evaluations. Teachers found the book helpful tn their teaching for tbe following reasons: 1. The record book aided them in effectively teaching farm record keeping. 2. Students showed more interest in record keeping. 3. Supervised farming programs were strengthened. / Master of Science

"Factors Which Affect Mining of the Lower Mississippian Coals in Montgomery County, Virginia" ie a study ot the Merrimac and Langhorne seams of the Price formation in Montgomery County, Virginia. The main reference used in the review of literature was Bulletin XXV of the Virginia Geolog1cal Survey by Marius R. Campbell. The review of literature discusses geologic formations and structure and the coal as seen in various prospect and mine openinga by Campbell. The author visited mines during the field investigation and analyzed samples of coal collected at the mines. He discusses past mining operations in Montgomery County and has traced all available mine maps of past mining operations. These are filed as part of the thesis. Core drillings were also investigated by the author and reported depths of the coal in the Blacksburg syncline ere entered in Table III and Figure I. An investigation was also made into mining methods used in Montgomery County including a discussion of explosive gases encountered in mining the Merrimac seam. The author discusses the results of the investigation in the conclusions. Be ia convinced the coals of the Valley fields, although of poor quality, will becane increasingly valuable as anthracite deposit in Pennsylvania and bituminous deposits in Southern West Virginia and southwest Virginia are depleted. / Master of Science

The objectives of the project are fourfold: (l) to determine the annual muskrat harvest in a county of southwestern Virginia; (2) to determine the economic value of the annual muskrat harvest in a county in southwestern Virginia; (3) to determine, in so far as possible, those factors which limit a greater harvest of muskrats in southwestern Virginia and; (4) to compare the economic returns from muskrat in a southwestern Virginia county with the economic returns from muskrat in an eastern Virginia county or counties, It is hoped that data obtained in this investigation will serve as bases for 18 management recommendations which might increase the annual muskrat production on Virginia streams and marshes and which might, in some measure, bring recognition to, and stress the importance of, one of our most valuable animals. / Master of Science

The thesis of this project focuses on the making of place in architecture. The erection of a wall is the initial act in the creation of a sense of place. Three walls separate the homogeneous world of the countryside to establish a zone for a winery complex. / Master of Architecture

The project included surface runoff and groundwater drainage measurements in addition to determinations of physical and chemical characteristics from three watersheds located within the same drainage basin in Montgomery County, Virginia. Watershed number 1 included 80 acres of heavily forested land; number 2 consisted of 50 acres of pasture land and approximately 0.1 acre of barren land; and number 3 included 20 acres of brush land and steep embankments adjoining a paved highway. The research period covered from March 15 to July 1, 1974. Dry weather groundwater drainage was sampled on four separate occasions. Surface runoff was sampled during five storms. A single composite sample was made from individual samples taken periodically from each watershed. The amount of rainfall which was present as runoff from watershed number 3 averaged over 85 percent and was much greater than that from the other two watersheds. Significant concentrations of TKN and N0₃-N were found in both groundwater drainage and surface runoff from all three watersheds. Steep embankments contributed the largest amount of TKN, N0₃-N, and COD, averaging 0.290, 0.203, and 19.2 lb/acre respectively in surface runoff. Pasture and barren land contributed the most total phosphorus and suspended matter, with values averaging 0.084 lb/acre P0₄-P and 167 lb/acre SS. / Master of Science

The Blacksburg Area as herein described is that portion of Montgomery County, Virginia, which comprises the north third of the Blacksburg Quadrangle. This Quadrangle is the southwest quarter of the Christiansburg topographic sheet published by the United States Geological Survey in 1890. The region is in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains. It is bounded by latitudes N. 37° 15' and N. 37° 10' and by longitudes W. 80° 30' and W. 80° 15', an area of approximately seventy-eight square miles. The east-west dimension is 13.8 miles and the north-south dimension is 5.7 miles. The town of Blacksburg, which is the location or the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, is within this area and is at longitude W. 80° 30' near the northern boundary of the area. The region is traversed in a north-south direction by state highway number 8 connecting the Lee Highway, U.S. 11, at Christiansburg, with Princeton, West Virginia, and main U.S. Highways to the west. A spur of the Norfolk am Western Railway connects Blacksburg with the main line at Christiansburg. The town of Shawsville is located in the extreme southeastern corner of the area. The main line of the Norfolk and Western Railway as well as U.S. Highway 11 pass through this town. They both connect that portion of the area with Roanoke, Virginia, and the eastern seaboard, with East Radford, Virginia, the Pocahontas Coal Fields and other points west to the Mississippi Valley. The main line at the Virginian Railway traverses the entire region from east to west, following the North Fork of the Roanoke River from Ironto to Ellett and from there westward by way of Merrimac. This railway, like the Norfolk and Western, is a connecting link between the Atlantic Seaboard at Norfolk, and the West Virginia Coal Fields by way of Roanoke. The Blacksburg Area is consequently readily accessible from most any direction by rail or by road, although within the area it is quite rugged and a few localities are none too easily reached. / Master of Science

The average individual is well aware of the need for ample supplies of water for domestic consumption and industrial use, for transportation, power, irrigation, and for recreation. Few, however, realize the scarcity and the value of this most versatile of a nation’s resources. The false impression of abundance that has long existed, created a certain sense of values which permitted misuse and abuse of the nation's supply of water. Increasing population and vast industrial growth leave created conditions that citizens can no longer ignore. In recent years considerable public opinion has been directed to the undesirable effects of extensive domestic and industrial pollution of the nation's waters. New legislation designed to control the uses of the country's waters and the abatement of pollution have been initiated and other programs arc proposed from time to time as public support increases. This thesis was designed to add to that fund of data upon which intelligent programs must necessarily be based. It presents some of the chemical, biological and physical aspects of a small, highly polluted stream, and an attempt was made to correlate the collected data sith the available information on the subjects involved. / Master of Science

Memory Childhood Walking the long, winding dirt road to our home. The road is flanked by pine, birch, fern, occasioned by bold jack-in-the-pulpit and fire-red newts. Underfoot, stones roll and skitter. Each stone, solid, whole, each, an open eye, feigning sleep. Holding secret its very center. Dream Powerful in its simplicity. One stark picture frame. Like a billboard in an endless landscape, it comes between two other dreams. It is the cross section of a stone. Thin skinned and ordinary on the outside. Obsidian black inside, with a cube of transparent crystal rising in the center. Once a dream. Now a talisman. / Master of Architecture

The Christiansburg map area consists of about 19 square miles in Montgomery County, Virginia, and is underlain by sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Middle Cambrian to Middle Ordovician. Post-Ordovician strata have been eliminated by thrusting and erosion. From south to north the rocks belong to five fault blocks: the Max Meadows, Pulaski, Saltville, Salem, and Catawba blocks. The Max Meadows block contains only the Middle Cambrian Rome Formation, the oldest rocks exposed within the area. The parautochthonous Saltville block includes rocks from Upper Cambrian to Middle Ordovician in age, which are exposed in windows of the Pulaski fault block. The Pulaski block contains highly fractured and brecciated Cambrian carbonates. The Salem block contains rocks ranging in age from Middle Cambrian to Lower Ordovician. The Salem fault terminates west of Christiansburg, Virginia. Rocks of the Catawba block range from Middle Cambrian to Mississippian in age, but only the section up to the Middle Ordovician is exposed in the map area. The windows through the Pulaski thrust sheet expose the large Christiansburg anticlinorium of the Saltville fault block. The size of each window is proportional to the size of the anticlinal fold developed on the crestal portion of the anticlinorium. The faulting may have occurred shortly after deposition of the Mississippian strata exposed in the Price Mountain window north of the area. The apparent parallelism of the thrust sheets and the overridden strata indicates that much of the present structural relief was formed after emplacement of the thrust sheets. / Master of Science

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an artificial neural network (ANN) to predict locations of urban change at a countywide level by testing various calibrations of the Land Transformation Model (LTM). It utilizes the Stuttgart Neural Network Simulator (SNNS), a common medium through which ANNs run a back-propagation algorithm, to execute neural net training. This research explores the dynamics of socioeconomic and biophysical variables (derived from the 1990 Comprehensive Plan) and how they affect model calibration for Montgomery County, Virginia. Using NLCD Retrofit Land Use data for 1992 and 2001 as base layers for urban change, we assess the sensitivity of the model with policy-influenced variables from data layers representing road accessibility, proximity to urban lands, distance from urban expansion areas, slopes, and soils. Aerial imagery from 1991 and 2002 was used to visually assess changes at site-specific locations. Results show a percent correct metric (PCM) of 32.843% and a Kappa value of 0.319. A relative operating characteristic (ROC) value of 0.660 showed that the model predicted locations of change better than chance (0.50). It performs consistently when compared to PCMs from a logistic regression model, 31.752%, and LTMs run in the absence of each driving variable ranging 27.971% – 33.494%. These figures are similar to results from other land use and land cover change (LUCC) studies sharing comparable landscape characteristics. Prediction maps resulting from LTM forecasts driven by the six variables tested provide a satisfactory means for forecasting change inside of dense urban areas and urban fringes for countywide urban planning. / Master of Science