508 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



forest land, there are some less important areas whose topography and 

 soil make them, at least temporarily, unfit for farming. The "gas 

 mounds,'' or low mounds a hundred feet or so across, which are found 

 scattered through regions without decided slopes, frequently impound 

 water in the depressions separating them, and unless the soil is very 

 fertile it does not pay, under present conditions, to do the leveling nec- 

 essary to secure proper drainage ; ordinary ditching cannot be done 

 except at great expense, an outlet being required from each of the in- 

 numerable depressions. Stiff clays appearing on the surface in hilly 

 areas and "crawfish land," white clays without easy drainage lying 

 along small creeks that flood them at times, are also among the more 

 nearly true forest soils. The non-agricultural lands scattered through 

 the cultivable portions of the longleaf-pine region are in far larger 

 units than in the shortleaf. 



Summarizing the above, we find that only 7,000,000 acres in Lou- 

 isiana are today cultivated or pastured, chiefly in the shortleaf, alluvial, 

 bluff, and prairie regions ; that 23,500,000 acres are cultivable, includ- 

 ing 3,000,000 acres of sea marsh that can be drained only at enormous 

 expense, and a considerable portion of the 7,600,000 acres of alluvial 

 land which will require heavy investment in drainage systems before 

 they can be reclaimed. The very attempt to express these conditions 

 in figures, however approximate, as these frankly are, discloses our 

 lack of definite knowledge on the subject and the necessity for learning 

 more. Land classification, for the purpose of locating, as definitely and 

 exactly as the present state of development warrants, the agricultural 

 and non-agricultural areas in Louisiana, is very badly needed. Our 

 present meager knowledge is sufficient to guide us only in the broadest 

 way, as the descriptions above well indicate. We know, for instance, 

 that deep sands are non-agricultural, but so far as being able to take a 

 map of the State and outline upon it the areas of deep sand goes we 

 are nearly ignorant. It is possible that the information may be obtain- 

 able locally in fragmentary form, but it has never been compiled, co- 

 ordinated, and made available for use. 



Pending more exact information, it is nevertheless worth while to 

 consider, region by region, the true forest soils — temporary and per- 

 manent — of Louisiana, and in broad terms state for each how continu- 

 ous forest production may be attained best, if at all. 



Sea Marsh. — The possibility of putting any of this treeless region 

 under forest growth is about as remote as the possibility of reclaiming 

 it. The use of loblolly pine, which Mr. Zon reports to be marching 



