d stony, is productive, easily worked, and especially adapted
to apples, peaches, and potatoes. The shale and mica soils, although
thin and leachy, are especially adapted to grapes, vegetables, and
berries, and other small fruits. These soils should be managed very
carefully to obtain the best results. They are easily worked and very
quickly respond to fertilization and thorough cultivation. It is very
probable that market gardening and fruit raising on these types would
prove profitable. It seems, however, that peach trees are short lived
on these soils. The meadow lands are low and subject to overflow,
although otherwise well drained. They are best adapted to the
production of corn, grass, and vegetables.

[Footnote 10: For the bulk of the information appearing under this
caption the author is indebted to Carter's and Lyman's _Soil Survey of
the Leesburg Area_, published in 1904 by the United States Department
of Agriculture.]

That part of the County lying east of a line drawn from the Potomac
River near Leesburg, by Aldie to the Fauquier line, is much more
unproductive than the western portion, partly on account of an
inferior soil, and partly in consequence of an exhausting system of
cultivation, once so common in eastern Virginia, i. e., cropping with
corn and tobacco without attempting to improve the quality of the
soil. When impoverished, the lands were thrown out to the commons.

Large tracts that formerly produced from thirty to forty bushels of
corn to the acre, still remain out of cultivation, though many of the
present proprietors are turning their attention to the improvement of
these soils and are being richly rewarded.

In this section, particularly along Goose Creek, trap-rock occurs,
sometimes covering large surfaces, at other times partially covered
with indurated shale, formed from the red shale of this region which
has become hardened by the heat of the intruding trap. Where this rock
occurs covering large surfaces, nearly level, "the soil is a dark
brown colored clay, very retentive of moisture and better adapted to
grass than grain.... A deficiency of lime probably occurs here, and
there may be some obnoxious ingredient present. Minute grains of iron
sand are generally interspersed through this rock, and as it is not
acted upon by atmospheric influences, its combination may contain some
acid prejudicial to vegetation. Where this rock is thrown into more
irregular elevations, and is apparently