368 Department of Conservation of Louisiana 



These ridges are the former beaches of lakes, bays or the 

 gulf. 



Classification of Louisiana Lands 



The State of Louisiana contains approximately 46,000 

 square miles of land and 2,500 square miles of rivers, 

 bayous, lakes, lagoons and land-locked bays. Of this area 

 (29V2 million acres of land and 11/2 million acres of water 

 bottoms) only about nine million acres were classed by 

 the census bureau in 1924 as farm lands, about four 

 million acres of which were in crops. 



The wet lands, comprising the swamps and marshes 

 which are not considered as water bottoms, comprise 

 some 8V2 million acres, bringing the area covered with 

 water at some season of the year, to some ten million 

 acres, or nearly one-third of the total area of the state. 

 Under primitive conditions, the area subject to overflow 

 only during excessive floods of the master rivers, would 

 total about fifteen million acres, or nearly one-half of 

 the entire state. Today, when the levees hold, this is re- 

 duced to the smaller figure, about ten million acres, al- 

 lotted about as follows: Permanent water bottoms, in- 

 cluding rivers, bayous, lakes and bays, 11/2 million acres, 

 sea marsh 2i/ 2 million acres, fresh water marsh 1% mil- 

 lion acres, permanent swamp IV2 million acres, and hard- 

 wood swamp subject to periodic overflow 2% million 

 acres. 



The state is divided roughly then in three great areas, 

 each occupying at present about one-third of the total, 

 upland forest lands, agricultural lands, and wet lands, 

 each of which is productive of great wealth; the first 

 primarily for its timber and pulp wood (cypress ex- 

 cluded) ; the second primarily for its crops and pasture 

 lands ; and the third for its great wild life, fur and fish- 

 eries resources and cypress and associated timber. 



The Muskrat Lands 



The muskrat lands of Louisiana comprise a strip of 

 territory of about two and a half million acres lying near 

 or adjacent to the Gulf Coast, but just beyond the tidal 



