Nov. 5, 1917 
Run-off from Drained Prairie Lands 
257 
of water in the surrounding prairie was over the general surface there was 
considerable seepage through the weak section of levee. This is shown in 
the records for the first five months and the last two months of the year. 
During the other five months the water in the outside prairie was low, and 
seepage practically ceased. The total area cultivated was about 600 
acres. Of this amount about 300 acres were in rice. Water was taken 
from the interior drainage channels to irrigate the rice land, and this 
further decreased the amount of water pumped out of the district during 
the months from June to August, inclusive. 
Conditions during 1915.—During the early months of 1915 theamount 
of water pumped, relative to the rainfall, was very heavy. However, by 
the middle of May the weak section of levee had been so much strength¬ 
ened that very little seepage water entered. During the summer months 
a little over 1,000 acres of rice were grown in the district, and water to 
irrigate the rice was all taken from the inside drainage channels. It was 
owing to this practice that only a small amount of water was pumped 
during the summer months. On December 1 the area was again increased 
to 7,500 acres by the addition of the 1,000 acres which were drained during 
a part of the year 1913. As the two months previous to the time this 
land was again brought into the district had been very dry, no pumping 
was necessary to remove water from the new land. (See Table VI.) 
TITTLE WOODS TRACT—AREA, 6,943 ACRES 
This tract lies along the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, about 
2 miles east of the New Orleans Land Co. tract. The frontage on the 
lake is about 7 miles. The width at the eastern end is about 2 miles 
and at the western end miles. Most of the surface was originally 
covered with a heavy growth of grass, only a small percentage of the 
area having been timbered. The surface was but a few inches above the 
mean lake level, and, except for a few small ridges and shell mounds, the 
tract was at one time subject to overflow whenever the lake was at high 
tide. A considerable depth of turfy humus or muck covered the entire 
area; the range in depth was from 1 foot along the lake shore to as much 
as 10 feet in the portion about a mile back from the lake. The average 
depth of muck was perhaps 5 feet. 
Reclamation work was started in 1908, and in the fall of that year a 
pumping plant was erected with a maximum 24-hour capacity of 0.48 
inch. Although a very small percentage of the canals necessary to drain 
the tract had at that time been constructed, the pumping plant was 
started in October, 1908. The construction of the canals and ditches was 
carried on during the time records of rainfall and pumping were kept. At 
times part of the tract was dammed off from the pumping plant, so that 
the relation between rainfall and amount pumped is not comparable to 
the results from the other districts already described. By the spring of 
1912 about 600 acres of the tract had been drained with small field 
ditches, but in the remainder of the area only a few of the larger canals 
