Geology and entire State is part of the Mississippi deposit on the bottom of an ancient gulf whose shore touched Cairo, Ill. Its oldest sediments were Cretaceous, now covered except in a few small spots in the north west. The upland region west of the northern course of the Calcasieu, and of the Ouachita, is a mass of horizontal Tertiary beds, clays and clay sandstones. The entire alluvial region and coast swamps, besides much bordering prairie, is Quarternary. Such formations could hardly be rich in minerals, and though some iron ore and low-grade brown coal are found in the Tertiary districts, the only important minerals are rock salt, sulphur and petroleum. The salt is found in the chain of isolated hills known as islands, commencing with Petite Anse on the Gulf and extending to New Iberia. The first workings were at Avery's Island; two other mines have been opened and the output has been increased to 200,000 tons annually. The development of the oil and gas industries has been very large. From the nine fields were pro duced in 1917 11,682,539 barrels. Several other localities show indications of great promise. The production of natural gas from seven fields was over 32,000,000,000 cubic feet. The amount of sulphur produced from the mines at Cal casieu was, in 1915, 379,885 tons.
Climate and Louisiana, ranging from the parallel of lat. to 29° N. is semi tropical in climate and products. The summer heat reaches 105 and averages 85 for the hottest month; it does not reach zero south of Shreve port, and the coldest month ranges on an aver age from 45° tp 60°, according to location. The gulf vapors make it very equable, the prevail ing winds being south and southwest — that is, from the ocean. There are only three months of frost in the year, the beginning varying from the 1st of November to the 1st of December. The rainfall varies from an average of 60 inches a year in the southeastern part, to 50 in the northern. This abundant moisture and the steady warmth cover the State with luxuriant tropical growths, and the magnificent profusion and beauty of its flowers are famous. The mag nolia is most familiar as a specially Southern product, but the roses, jasmines, oleanders, camellias, etc., are notably beautiful. The orange, fig and most other semi-tropical fruits will flourish here.
The only large quadrupeds sur viving are black bears and a few catamounts in the less accessible forests and swamps. Many deer are found during the winter. The wild cat is not uncommon, and the raccoon and opossum are familiar. The alligator is com mon to all bayous and ponds. Bird-life is plentiful; it comprises eagles and vultures, peli cans and cranes, besides wild turkeys, geese and ducks. Under the working of the Con servation Commission created in 1916 the fauna of the State are fully protected and exact sta tistics are compiled showing the value pro duced. Deer have largely increased in number. In 1917, 185,614 ducks were marketed, a de crease from the number of preceding years. The yield of fur-bearing animals, of which 5,002,840 were killed in 1912, fell to 1,813,190 in 1917. The alligator catch is diminishing rap idly. Through the action of the Sage Fund the area of bird preserves is now the largest in the United States and many rare species have been saved from utter extinction which threat ened them.
A large proportion of the entire forest wealth of the State is represented by im mense areas of long and short leaf pine. It is estimated that the standing timber in 1918 was 91,000,000,000 feet of pine, cypress and hard wood. The present rate of cutting over 60,000, 000 annually cannot be maintained for more than 10 years. Fortunately the cut-over lands are valuable for farming purposes. The for estry division of the Conservation Commission has done much for the protection of the for ests from destructive fires and has taken steps toward reforestation. In lumber production Louisiana ranks second in the United States.
the considerations men tioned, an exceptionally fertile soil, a warm climate with variations from northern high lands to southern coast plains, Louisiana has remarkable natural advantages for a great va riety of products, from temperate to semi tropic. Yet less than two-fifths of the soil has been even nominally in farms, and only one fourth improved; and of the total in 1916, $154,735,819 in value of farm crops, $123,567, 811, or over eleven-twelfths, was in two money crops and two food crops, cotton and sugar cane, corn and rice. This lack of diversifica tion of crops is largely a result of the old slave system, which tended to concentrate at tention upon a few staples roughly cultivable by gangs. There are some indications of a change;
but the chief feature has been the enormous de velopment of irrigated rice culture, as told be low. There has also been a progressive subdi vision of farms; the average plantation of 1860 was over 500 acres, the average farm 1910 was under 90. This does not, however, imply the cessation of large farms; on the contrary, Louisiana is the State of great plantations, there being over 11,000 containing more than 1,000 acres each. This is due to the heavy capi tal needed to carry an the sugar business, which must have a large territory to make fair re turns. One result of the growth of the class of colored farmers, besides the cutting up of farms — their average being 40 acres to 150 for the white farmer — is the increase of rentals, they being usually too poor and unthrifty to buy. They slightly outnumber the white farm ers, but they own only about one-seventh of their farms against nearly two-thirds owned by the whites, and there are nearly three times as many cash tenants and two and a half times as many share tenants as white. They operate but about one-fifth of the farm area, however. In cotton culture, Louisiana has been slower to recover from the Civil War than any other State,, having not yet reached the figures of 1860. while several others have immeasurably surpassed them, and it has not greatly grown since 1890; its product in 1916 was 442,770 bales of a value of $33,207,750. Cane sugar, the great specialty of the State, produced in 1916 305,352 tons, worth $36,642,240. Louisi ana produces three-fourths of all the cane grown in the United States, outside of Hawaii, and more than 11 times as much as the next heaviest producer, Georgia. This is an exten sive crop, concentrating a great value on a small area; while the value of the crop was over half that of cotton, its acreage was only one-fifth as much; with nearly one-fourth the total value of farm products, it occupied only 8 per cent of the farm acreage. One of the great draw backs to Louisiana sugar-cane raising is that about one-fifth has to be kept for seed and cannot be replaced in the same season, while in Cuba the tops of unfit canes are simply dropped into hoe-made holes, and there are plenty always to be had; the Louisiana seed cane often rots, the Cuban never. The Cuban cane is also much richer in •sugar, and the yield per acre is about double. From all these causes, the cost of making a pound of sugar is about double in Louisiana what it is in Cuba. Corn, as in all the Southern States owing to its value as a food crop, for feeding swine, and in some States for distilling— has always had far greater attention than any other cereal. In 1916 the crop was 44,009,772 bushels valued at $35,207,817. But the great coming food crop is rice, whose culture increased about two and a half times in the last decade, and nearly all of this in the last three years; owing to the in troduction of improved methods by a number of Iowa immigrants, and of a new system of Irrigation, which has revolutionized rice cul ture and worked a complete transformation in the great coast-prairie belt of southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas, formerly almost in primitive solitude. Up to 1897 nearly all the rice grown on these prairies was “Provi den& rice, dependent mainly on rainfall. Then two years of drought showed that there was no security without irrigation, and there was a stampede to the upump where a new world was created by raising water from bayous. This district, as above said, is full of slightly raised ridges; the canals are run along these, not by digging, but by throwing up parallel dikes for a channel; as the water in all these regions lies below the land to be irrigated, it is raised by pumping plants at the heads of the canals and distributed to the lands by grav ity; sometimes two or more pump stations are needed on the same canal to lift the water high enough. This immense draft on the water sup ply has created alarm for the future; but the whole region is underlaid with exhaustless gravel strata, and easily bored wells can irrigate 100 acres without diminish ing the flow. This prairie has the further ad vantage over the delta district, formerly the chief seat of the culture, that in the latter the heavy machinery needed for improved cultiva tion was apt to sink in the soil. In 1916 the rice grown was 027,581 sacks of a market value of $18,570,004.