UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



BULLETIN No. 652 



J/» Contribution from the Office of Public Roads and Rural *\c*i 

 ' Engineering ^&Y 



OVV W6. LOGAN WALLER PAGE, Director jZ&T < &J-U 



Washington, D. C 



PROFESSIONAL PAPER. 



June 6, 1918 



(REVISION OF DEPARTMENT BULLETIN 71.) 



THE WET LANDS OF SOUTHERN LOUISIANA AND 

 THEIR DRAINAGE. 



By Charles W. Okey, Senior Drainage Engineer. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Introduction 1 



Location and general conditions 2 



Climate 3 



Soils 5 



Crops 15 



Natural drainage conditions 16 



Description of reclamation districts 21 



Willswood Plantation 22 



New Orleans Lakeshore Land Co. tract. . 26 



Des Allemands drainage district 30 



Gueydan drainage district, subdistrict 



No. 1 34 



Page. 



Results of investigations of reclaimed tracts . . 37 

 Factors affecting drainage by pumping in 



southern Louisiana 38 



Investigations to be made before reclama- 

 tion 38 



Area of district 38 



Levees 39 



Interior ditch systems 42 



Pumping plant .• 45 



Utilization of land 66 



Financial 67 



Success in drainage 67 



INTRODUCTION. 



Louisiana ranks second among the States in the area of swamp land within 

 its borders and in the percentage of its total area that is classed as swamp 

 land. Of a total area of 45,420 square miles, 15,930 square miles, or 35 per 

 cent, are classed as swamp and overflowed land. The drainage of these lands 

 is a public improvement of very great importance to the future wealth and 

 prosperity of the State. Although the magnitude of the task has long been 

 recognized and the tremendous advantage that the reclamation of these lands 

 would bring to the State has been generally admitted, it is but recently that 

 the work of putting the swamp land into condition for cultivation has been 

 attempted on any large scale. A number of conditions are responsible for 

 this delay in the work, among which the following are important : 



First, a very large proportion of the swamp lands of the State at one time 

 was subject to overflow by the Mississippi River. The first step in the drain- 

 age of these lands was to protect them from river overflow by levees con- 

 structed along the main river channels. This .phase of the work has been 

 going on in some parts of the State for more than 100 years, and in nearly 

 30444° — Bull. 652—18 1 1 



