Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1913.djvu/594

 472 UNITED STATES: — LOUISIANA

students, a largeBaptist College with 28 professors and 423 students, and at New Orleans the Southern University for coloured persons (established 1880) with 500 enrolled students in 1910. There is an Industrial Institute at Ruston and another at Lafayette. Thp State has also an institution for the deaf and dumb and another for the blind, both at Baton Rouge.

Charity, — Besides almshouses and asylums for imbeciles, &c., Louisiana has 56 benevolent institutions, most of which have been provided by private persons or ecclesiastical bodies. They comj)rise ten hospitals (four public), 25 orphanages, 17 homes for adults (two public), and three schools for the deaf and blind (two public). The police juries provide for the support of the poor in their parishes, except in mu.nicipal corporations wholly or partly exempt from parish taxation ; they may establish a home or farm for their paupers and appoint suitable officials.

Finance, Defence. — For the biennial period 1906-07 the receipts for all funds (including transfers and balances from former periods) and the disbursements were : —

1906 1907

Dollars Dollars

Receipts, 1906 (including balances). 6,232,631 6,628,502 Disbursements, 1906. . . . 4,862,692 5,209,179

Balances Jan. 1, 1907 and 1908. 1,369,939 1,419,323

The bonded and floating debt of the State up to March 1, 1908, amounted to 12,244,035 dollars. The assessed valuation of property in 1910 amounted to 527,773,950 dollars.

The total value of all property in the State in 1904 Avas estimated at : —

Dollars

Real property 489,295,161

Personal property 542,933,845

Total .... 1,032,229,006

The militia or State National Guard, with lieadquarters at Baton Rouge, consists of infantry, artillery, and cavalry, with a mounted signal corps, and had a total strength of 111 officers and 1,248 enlisted men in 1910. The naval militia has 52 officers and 583 enlisted men.

Production, Industry. — Tlie products and manufactures of Louisiana arc very various. The chief crops in 1912 were corn, 1,805,000 acres, producing 32,490,000 bushels ; rice grown on 352,600 acres, yielding 11,812,000 bushels ; cane sugar, 503,525 acres, producing 656,913,708 lbs. For 1912 the cotton area was 1,114,000 acres, and the yield 435,000 bales, Oats, potatoes, sugar, rice, and tobacco are also grown, but not extensively. In 1911 there were 564 acres under tobacco, the yield being 210,000 pounds. In 1910 the State contained 392,014 head of cattle, 143,496 horses. 69,279 sheep, and 237,245 swine.

The State has a large forest area, and extensive lumber industries.

Louisiana has valuable fisheries. Oyster reefs extend almost continuously along the coast, and the oyster fisheries are the most valuable south of Virginia, the area suitable to planting and growing oysters being over 7,000 square miles.