SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES 9 
oil, and water transportation. Sugar, cane sirup, cotton goods, and 
celotex (board made from bagasse, or sugarcane refuse) are important 
local products. 
Louisiana, with an area of 48,506 square miles, had in 1930 a 
population of 2,101,593, an increase of nearly 17 per cent since 1920, 
placing it twenty-second in rank in the United States. 
Owing to large areas of thinly populated swamp lands, 
however, the average density of population is only 43 
to the square mile. New Orleans is by far the largest city. Shreve- 
port, which is growing rapidly, is next in size; Baton Rouge (the 
capital), Monroe, Alexandria, Lake Charles, and Lafayette are 
considerably smaller. 
The greater part of Louisiana consists of lands less than 100 feet 
above sea‘level, and a large area along the Mississippi River and the 
Gulf coast stands at less than 50 feet. The alluvial valley of the 
Mississippi occupies all of the eastern half of the State. There are 
more than 4,700 miles of waterways, but some of them are small. A 
great intracoastal canal utilizing many of these natural waters is in 
course of construction. (See p. 17.) 
The principal products of Louisiana are agricultural, with crop 
values of $161,078,688 in 1929,’ but only about one-fifth of the area 
is under cultivation. Furs, lumber, petroleum, natural gas, and 
miscellaneous manufactures, especially sugar refining, are sources of 
large income, In 1929, 402,422 acres of rice yielded 16,317,463 bush- 
els, 1,945,354 acres of cotton yielded 798,828 bales, and 205,394 acres 
of cane yielded 208,000 short tons of sugar. Corn production was 
about 20,000,000 bushels. According to data from the New Orleans 
Association of Commerce, the lumber cut in 1928 was 2,278,442,000 
board feet, the State ranking second in the production of pine lumber, 
and its value, together with turpentine, rosin, tar, and other naval 
Louisiana. 
general, has a higher sugar content and 
tougher fiber, and requires replanting 
only every second or third year, in- 
stead of annually. According to data 
7 Statistics are taken from United 
States Census reports except as other- 
wise stated. 
8 Sugarcane was introduced from 
Santo Domingo by Jesuits in 1751, but 
not until 1780, when slave labor was 
utilized, did its cultivation become 
Louisiana grows about 95 
€ 
siderable raw sugar for its refineries. 
For a while the extinction of the sugar 
industry was threatened by a blight 
called the mosaic disease, but it was 
saved by the aubptiiution. of cane im- 
rted from Jaya, which not only re- 
sists the disease but is more hardy in 
152109°—33——_2 
furnished by the New Orleans Associa- 
tion of Commerce, 200,000 acres of this 
cane was growing in 1929, with a yield 
of over 18 tons of cane to the acre, or 
more than double that of the earlier 
cane, and yielding 160 pounds of sugar 
to the ton, instead of 1388 pounds. The 
1929 sugar crop ranked next to cotton 
and rice in value. Sugarcane makes a 
heavy draft on the soil, but many fields 
have been producing it for 100 years or 
more. 
