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.