Perhaps the largest undeveloped area is the upland or mixed hardwood and 

 pine hill country, which is located in the northern and northwestern part of 

 the State. 



The long-leaf pine hill lands constitute a large area in the central and western 

 part of the State on both sides of the Red River, and also a small area northeast 

 from New Orleans. 



Finally there are the long-leaf pine flats, part of which are located in the 

 southwestern section of the State adjoining the prairie region and part east 

 of the Mississippi River, north of Lake Pontchartrain. 



ALLUVIAL DELTA LANDS 



The Alluvial Delta Lands of Louisiana occupy an area of about 8,000 square 

 miles located in the southeast corner of the State, where the Mississippi River 

 enters the Gulf of Mexico. They lie east of a line drawn south of the mouth of 

 the Red River, and south of a line drawn east and west along the north shore of 

 Lake Pontchartrain. The entire region might be described as a rectangle about 150 

 miles east and west by 90 miles north and south, with the Mississippi River running 

 diagonally across it from the northwest corner to the southeast corner, and the 

 city of New Orleans located about twenty-five miles northeast of its geometrical 

 center. 



All of the land in this quadrangle to a depth of over 2,000 feet has been 

 formed by deposit from the overflow of the Mississippi River and is, therefore, 

 pure soil of the very richest character; soil that has been washed down from 

 the fields and hillsides of thirty states, whose drainage water finds an outlet 

 to the sea through the mouth of this great river. The process of filling in the 

 Gulf and building up this area by deposit has been going on for centuries, so 

 that the mouth of the river, which at one time must have been near the City 

 of Baton Rouge, has been gradually pushed out into the Gulf, the sediment in 

 the escaping flood waters covering the entire area from Pearl River, on the 

 east, to the Atchafalaya River, on the west, and raising it a little higher each year. 



Ninety per cent of the land in this area is virgin soil covered with a swamp 

 growth of cypress and willow in the upper or higher portion of the region, and 

 marsh or open prairie grass in the larger portion nearest the Gulf. The only 

 land available for development and cultivation during the past two hundred years 

 that this region has been inhabitated, consisted of a strip of land two miles wide 

 on either side of the river, following its course for about 140 miles diagonally 

 across the region, a strip of land about three-quarters of a mile wide, bordering 

 both banks of Bayou Lafourche for a distance of seventy-five miles in its course 



Alluvial Delta Lands before Reclamation 

 3 



