LOUISIANA, a State in the South Central Division of the North American Union; bounded by Arkansas, Missis sippi, the Gulf of Mexico, and Texas; admitted to the Union, April 30, 1812; number of parishes, 60; capital, Baton Rouge; total area, 48,720 square miles; pop. (1890) 1,118,587; (1900) 1,386,625; (1910) 1,656,388; (1920) 1,798,509.
Topography. — The surface of the State may properly be divided into two parts, the uplands, and the alluvial and coast and swamp regions. The alluvial regions, including the low swamps and coast lands, cover an area of about 20, 000 square miles; they lie principally along the Mississippi, which traverses the State from north to south for a distance of about 600 miles, the Red river, the Ouachita and its branches, and other minor streams. The breadth of the alluvial region along the Missis sippi is from 10 to 60 miles, and along the other streams it averages about 10 miles. The Mississippi flows upon a ridge formed by its own deposits, from which the lands incline toward the low swamps beyond at an average fall of six feet per mile. The lands along other streams present very similar features. These alluvial lands are never inun dated save when breaks occur in the levees by which they are protected against the floods of the Mississippi and its tributaries. These floods, however, do not occur annually, and they may be said to be exceptional. With the main tenances of strong levees these alluvial lands would enjoy perpetual immunity from inundation. The uplands and con tiguous hill lands have an area of more than 25,000 square miles, and they con sist of prairie and woodlands. The ele vations above sea-level range from 10 feet at the coast and swamp lands to 50 and 60 feet at the prairie and alluvial lands. In the uplands and hills the ele vations rise from 60 feet to something under 500 feet in north Louisiana, where the greatest altitudes are to be found. Besides the navigable rivers already named (some of which are called bayous), there are the Sabine, forming the W. boundary, and the Pearl, the E. boundary, the Calcasieu, the Mer mentau, the Vermilion, the Teche, the Atchafalaya, the Boeuf, the Lafourche, the Courtableau, the D'Arbonne, the Macon, the Tensas, the Amite, the Tche functa, the Tickfaw, the Matalbany, and a number of other streams of lesser note, constituting a natural system of naviga ble waterways, aggregating over 4,000 miles in length, which is unequalled in the United States and probably in the world. The State also has 1,060 square
miles of land-locked bays, 1,700 square miles of inland lakes, and a river surface of over 500 square miles.
Soil.—The soil of Louisiana, generally, is exceedingly fertile and it varies from 10 to 40 feet in depth. The alluvial lands are world-renowned for their pro ductiveness, and the larger part of the uplands surpass in fertility the same character of lands in most of the States. The pine flats, which elsewhere are con sidered sterile, are rendered productive when fertilized, and they would be more so with irrigation. The only non-pro ductive portions of Louisiana are the salt sea-coast marshes. The principal forest trees include long and short leaf pine, oak, honey locust, ash, elm, sweet gum, magnolia, cypress, willow, cotton wood, palmetto, osage, poplar, orange, maple, walnut, wild cherry, persimmon, linden, tulip, holly, lime and hackberry.
Agriculture.—The State possesses ex ceptionally great agricultural advan tages, embracing varieties of products appertaining to the temperature and to the semi-tropical zones. Cotton is grown throughout the State, and gives the largest general average yield per acre in the South. S. of the Red River, be cause they are usually more remunera tive than cotton, sugar cane and rice are by preference cultivated in a great portion of the alluvial lands, and in re cent years the prairie region of S. W. Louisiana has been converted into the most extensive region of rice culture in the United States. In 1919 the valuation of the productions of the State was as follows: Cotton and by-products, $52,500,000; rice and by-products, $53,420,000; corn, oats, and hay, $60,362,000; and fruits, vegetables, live stock, etc., $5,000,000. Sugar is one of the most important. The production in 1919 was about 1,000, 000 tons.