60 LAND DRAINAGE 



swamp. This is true of the great Mississippi Delta region. 

 The state of Louisiana has approximately 10,000,000 

 acres of swamp lands. The map (Fig. 22) shows a section 

 of the Bayou La Fourche, at one time a mouth of the 

 Mississippi, and how the farms of the descendants of the 

 early French Acadians occupy the only naturally drained 

 lands at the time of their coming. The farms are very 

 narrow and lie practically at right angles to the stream. 

 They range from one mile to one-and-a-half miles in 

 length, and touch or include marsh land at their rear. 

 For a distance of forty miles south of Lockport, Louisiana, 

 these farms are said to average less than 250 feet in width. 



These alluvial areas are among the richest lands on 

 the globe and are full of agricultural potentiality. 



86. Swamps of the drift regions. Throughout the 

 regions of glacial drift, there are areas of swamp or marsh- 

 lands, ranging in size from a few square rods to thousands 

 of acres, and even hundreds of square miles. They range 

 in quality of soil from the so-called black ash and cedar 

 swamp, which, while rich in organic matter, contains large 

 quantities of mineral, to deposits of almost pure organic 

 matter, in many cases but slightly decayed. They run 

 in depth from a few inches to many feet. They possess 

 a considerable range of agricultural values, depending 

 upon depth, composition, underlying subsoil, and the like. 

 The soils that have made Kalamazoo, Michigan, famous 

 for the celery sent out to the world, belong to this class, 

 as do also the soils that have made Michigan famous as a 

 producer of peppermint and spearmint oils. 1 



1 Michigan produces 88 per cent of the peppermint oil pro- 

 duced in the United States and 60 per cent of the peppermint 

 oil produced in the world. R. S. Shaw, Spec. Bui. 70, Mich. 

 Agr. Col. Exp. St. 



