ITS ADVANTAUKSI ITS CONDITIONS ! ITS PROSPECTS I 



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Paristi6so!i!i6Lono-LGa! Pine Flats 



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Under this head are included the par- 

 ishes of Tangipahoa and St. Tammany. 

 The other parishes, Calcasieu, Living- 

 ston and St. Helena, in which areas of 

 this formation occur, have been already 

 described. 



TANGIPAHOA PARISH 



Is, lilie St. Helena in its northern part, 

 with gently rolling pine woods, full of 

 healtlifuinesis and with easy accessibility 

 to the outside world by the Illinois Central 

 Railroad, which runs through its entire 

 length. In the southern part of the parish 

 the pine flats prevail. The entire parish is 

 susceptible of wonderful improvement, as 

 has been shown by the efforts of tne large 

 numlier of northern men who have settled 

 all along the line of tlie above mentioned 

 railroad and converted these lands into 

 ■excellent gardens and tine orchards. The 

 lands bordering on the Tangipahoa river 

 <ire naturally fair and are capable of be- 

 ing imi)roved to any desired extent. The 

 climate and soils of this parish permit 

 the growth of most every crop. Sugar 

 cane, rice, cotton, corn, oats, grasses, 

 truclcs and fruits— in fact, a more varied 

 product of the soil is now obtainable in 

 this parish than in any other in the 

 state. It is the great strawberry and 

 Japanese plum parish of the state, and 

 many hundred carloads of the former 

 are annually shipped to Chicago and other 

 western markets. 



At Ponchatoula, Hammond, Tickfaw, 

 Iloseland, Amite, Kentwood and Tan- 

 gipahoa, have been established large and 

 I)rosperous farming villages, cultivating 

 fruits and vegetables for western mar- 

 kets. 



Many thousand western people have 

 here established successfully "village 

 farms" and are enjoying comfortable 

 homes in a delightful climate, with mod- 

 erate toil. 



ST. TAMMANY PARISH 



Is almost entirely a pine flat parish, only 

 the margins of lake Pontchartrain and 

 the lower lands on the Pearl river ex- 

 cepted. 



Tlie pine lands are like those described 

 as occurring in the lower part of Tan- 

 gipahoa parish, and are used largely for 

 the same purposes, viz: pasture, lumber, 

 turpentine and charcoal. The bottoms 

 are mainly cultivated. The lowland belt 

 fringing lake Pontchartrain is occupied 

 l)y summer residences of many of the 

 oitlzens of New Orleans. Mandeville and 



liewisburg are small towns, situated on 

 the lake, and are mainly composed of 

 houses which belong to citizens of New 

 Orleans, who occupy them as summer 

 homes. Covington, the county seat, 

 situated on Tchefuncta river, ten miles 

 from the lake, is also largely 

 filled with summer residents from the 

 Crescent city. A railroad connects this 

 city with New Orleans. 



CENTRAL PRAIRIE REGION 



constitutes a narrow belt, twenty to 

 thirty miles wide, running across the 

 state from the Ouachita to the Sabine. 

 On the Ouachita it extends from Colum- 

 bia to Harrisonburg, and on the Sabine 

 from Sabinetovvn to Toledo, with a large 

 outcrop on the Anacoco bayous, in Ver- 

 non parish, below this line, while this 

 peculifir geological formation occupies this 

 extended area, it covers a comparatively 

 small portion of the surface. It occurs in 

 isolated patches of ranging areas all 

 through this belt, giving us distinctly two 

 classes of prairies, viz., black calcareous 

 prairies, covered with luxuriant grasses, 

 with occasional clumps of wild plum and 

 crabapple and hawthorn. These are ex- 

 ceedingly fertile, and give large returns 

 when properly cultivated. The second 

 class are known locally as the "hog wal- 

 low" prairies, which are composed of 

 stiff, non-calcareous, intractable clays, 

 with a rough surface, an eifect produced 

 by alternations of wet and dry weather 

 upon this character of clay. These soils 

 are, as a rule, poor and unthrifty, and are 

 cultivated only in very limited areas, and 

 with no positively profitable results. 

 Neither of these classes have tracts more 

 than a few miles in extent, being inter- 

 rupted by ridges of long-leaf pine or oak 

 uplands. Frequently these ridges may be 

 underlaid with prairie material, and the 

 liottom soils resulting from the washings 

 from these ridges may contain an ad- 

 mixture of clay and sand in such excellent 

 proportions as to form very fertile and 

 desirable soils. Surface wells, though 

 deep and expansive, furnish a very impure 

 drinking water, and hence have proven a 

 drawback to the more extensive occu- 

 pancy of these prairies. Artesian wells, 

 however, will remove this obstruction. 

 Since all the parishes included in this 

 bell are treated of in detail elsewhere, 

 it is only necessary to repeat here that 

 parts of the following parishes are occu- 

 pied by this formation, viz.: Caldwell, 

 Catahoula, Winn, Grant, Natchitoches, 

 Sabine and Vernon (Anacoco prairies). 



