Loudoun's Defiant Dairy Outpost

"People in the dairy business fought the same battles," Eddie Potts said. "We all lost or all won. You were humbled constantly."

It was labor-intensive work that required every the help of every family member from a young age.

"A 65-year-old dairy farmer looks 80," said Carol S. McComb, 62, who grew up on a Waterford farm and co-wrote "The Story of Loudoun's Dairy Industry."

McComb swore she would never milk cows again. "But then I met and fell in love with a dairy farmer," she said.

The arrival of Washington Dulles International Airport in 1962 hastened Loudoun's suburban transformation. It offered jobs to farmhands that didn't wake them before sunrise or tie their wages to a herd's fluctuating output. "It happened so much quicker than we anticipated," said William H. Harrison, 69, a retired Loudoun extension agent and co-author of the book about the dairy industry.

Parents couldn't afford to expand their businesses because of rising land prices or to compete with construction worker wages. Their children were less willing to put in the long hours. So farmers, suddenly wealthy on paper, sold out.

"Developers would just drive into the driveway, knock on the door and say, 'Want to sell me your farm?' just like that," said Warren Howell, the county's agricultural development officer. Today undeveloped farmland is worth about $15,000 to $20,000 an acre, Howell said.

Dogwood Farm's parcel -- the Potts own just less than 100 acres -- was valued at about $2.1 million in 2007, according to county records. The Potts paid about $8,550 in taxes, more than double compared with 20 years ago. Gas prices are rising. Livestock feed has become more expensive because of pressure to convert more corn into ethanol, an alternative fuel source. Milk's commodity price has plateaued since the early 1980s, making it difficult to earn a living wage or break even.

Farmers receive only about a third of the grocery price of dairy products, according to the National Milk Producers Federation.

Fairfax farms that once rivaled Loudoun in milk production are gone, and Frederick dairy farms are waging a battle against urban encroachment.

Since 1980, the number of dairy farms nationwide has decreased almost 75 percent, according to the Agriculture Department. Technological advances have increased the milk production per cow, as well as cut transportation costs, steadily reducing the industry to big operations out west.

"You can't live in the past. You love this farmland, but people need places to live," said Jerry Michael, 77, who sold his two farms in Ashburn and Dulles. "You can't begrudge them that."

Eddie and Marty Potts sold off their herd in 2005, but kept the land. All three of their children studied dairy science at Virginia Tech, but none of them wanted to run Orchard Crest Farm, which has been in the family for eight generations. And it would be too expensive to hire help.

The couple still lives in the original family home, with Eddie's parents up the hill. But who knows what will happen to the land?

"I wish I could tell you," said Eddie, shaking his head, staring down at his flowery linoleum kitchen floors. "It's all uncertain, all foggy, not a clear picture. I don't know. I don't know."

This fall, Nancy and Mike Potts's oldest son will be attending Virginia Tech for dairy science, a family tradition dating back to his great-grandfather. Retired dairy farmers, the few that are left, talk eagerly about his early college acceptance. Perhaps, they say, he will be the one keeping Loudoun's dairy legacy alive.