limited extent, is influenced by the county's diversified physical
features.

Though the rainfall is abundant, amounting annually to forty or fifty
inches, ordinarily the air is dry and salubrious. This ample
precipitation is usually well distributed throughout the growing
season and is rarely insufficient or excessive. The summer rainfall
comes largely in the form of local showers, scarcely ever attended by
hail. Loudoun streams for the most part are pure and rapid, and there
appears to be no local cause to generate malaria.

In common with the rest of Virginia the climate of Loudoun corresponds
very nearly with that of Cashmere and the best parts of China. The
mean annual temperature is 50° to 55°.

Loudoun winters are not of long duration and are seldom marked by
protracted severity. Snow does not cover the ground for any
considerable period and the number of bright sunny days during these
seasons is unusually large. In their extremes of cold they are less
rigorous than the average winters of sections farther north or even of
western localities of the same latitude. Consequently the growing
season here is much more extended than in either of those sections.
The prevailing winds in winter are from the north and west, and from
these the mountains afford partial protection.

The seasons are somewhat earlier even than in the Shenandoah Valley,
just over the western border of Loudoun, and the farmers here plant
and harvest their crops from one week to ten days earlier than the
farmers of that region.