506 



TOURXAL OF FORESTRV 



Like most statistics, these figures are very misleading without fur- 

 ther explanation, because the factor of drainage has been left out of 

 account, and in two large regions it is the all-important factor. Condi- 

 tions in each region ma}' be described as follows : 



Sea Marsh. — Beyond a doubt, this will be the last region to be devel- 

 oped for farms and pastures, owing to the fact that it is subject to salt- 

 water overflow periodically, when certain combinations of wind and 

 currents drive the waters of the Gulf over it. When the demand for 

 agricultural land in Louisiana has reached the point which in Holland 

 justified the diking of the Zuyder Zee this region will be reclaimed. 

 Limited areas have been reclaimed by private capital in the past, and 

 undoubtedly will be in the future, but the great bulk can never be re- 

 claimed except as a public enterprise. So little is known of the soils of 

 this now nearly unutilized region that an estimate of the percentage 

 of non-agricultural land is purely a guess. In small areas certain soils 

 of very deep vegetable muck or peaty material, apparently occupying 

 the sites of ancient bayous, have defied the skill of agricultural experts 

 to restore to agricultural productiveness after about five years of crop- 

 ping. No chemical applications have served to counteract what appears 

 to be the accumulation of vegetable poisons produced by growing 

 crops ; possibly trees may be induced to grow on such soils when farm 

 crops will not, but no experiments have been conducted along this line 

 so far as known. 



Prairie. — This region is the great producer of rice, sugar-cane, and 

 similar crops. The large percentage already in agricultural use is the 

 result of natural fertility and freedom from stumps, the removal of 

 which would retard development. 



Bluff Region. — The soils of this region are of wind origin and are 

 very productive. The non-agricultural portions — 10 per cent of the 

 total— are such because of broken topography, some of the roughest 



