The Meadow of Loudoun is usually a brown silty or sandy loam, with a depth of several feet. The type occurs in narrow bands along the larger streams, forming a bottom or low terrace a few feet above the mean water level. The nature of the soil depends greatly on the surrounding soils, as it is formed from sediment of the wash from these types and partakes of their textural characteristics to some extent.
The type, while low and flat, is generally well enough drained for cultivation, although this is somewhat hindered by overflows; consequently the land is chiefly used for grazing. The soil is alluvial in origin, being built up by successive overflows of the streams. Little of the type is forested. Where cultivated it is generally used for corn, which yields from 50 to 75 bushels an acre. Little wheat is grown, although the soil is capable of producing fair yields of this crop. It also produces from 2 to 3 tons of hay per acre, and affords excellent pasturage. The crops are somewhat uncertain, however, on account of overflows which sometimes occur after the planting season, though in the case of the River the danger from flood is usually past before the time for corn planting. Where the areas are in grass the floods usually do little damage. Productiveness is in a great measure maintained by the addition of the sediments left by the overflow waters.
Flora.—Records of the days of early settlement point to a scarcity and an inferiority of large timber in Loudoun (then Prince William) and contiguous counties. The responsibility for this condition has been traced to the hunters who frequented this region prior to its settlement and wantonly set fire to the forests in order to destroy underbrush, the better to secure their quarries. A comparatively dense and vigorous new growth followed the discontinuance of this pernicious practice.
At the present time, after the encroachment of field and pasture for nearly two centuries, a large portion of the county's area is still under forest cover. The stand, in the main, is somewhat above average size and quality.
The total value of forest products cut or produced on farms in 1899 was $51,351. This includes only the wood, lumber, railroad ties, etc., which the farmers cut in connection with their ordinary farming operations. The reports of persons making lumbering or wood cutting their principal business are not included.
The trees common to Loudoun are four varieties of the white oak, i. e., common, swamp, box, and chestnut-leaved, the latter, however, appearing only along the margin of the Potomac River; black, Spanish, and red oak, chestnut oak, peach or willow oak, pin oak; and in the eastern parts of the county, black jack, or barren oak, and dwarf oak, hickory, black and white walnut, white and yellow poplar, chestnut, locust, ash, sycamore, wild cherry, red flowering maple, gum, sassafras, persimmon, dogwood, red and slippery elm, black and white mulberry, aspin (rare), beech, birch, linn, honey-locust, sugar maple, sugar nut, yellow and white pine, hemlock, and red cedar.
Among the smaller trees and shrubs are the white thorn, maple-leaved or Virginia thorn (suitable for hedging), hawthorn, wild May cherry, or service berry, water beech, fringe tree, red bud, black alder, common alder, sumach, elder, laurel, witch-hazel, hazel-nut, papaw, chinkapin, burnish bush, nine bark, button-bush, honeysuckle, several varieties of the whortleberry or huckleberry, and wild gooseberry.
A few of the brambles met with are the greenbrier, high blackberry, dewberry, or low blackberry, and raspberry.
A list of the vines and creepers would comprise the fox grape, three varieties; pigeon, or raccoon grape, chicken grape, a wild bitter grape, sarsaparilla, yellow parilla, poison-vine, or poison-oak, clematis, trumpet-flower, and wild potato vine.