Mississippistate

Mississippi (state) is the name of one of the United States, having Tennessee on the N., Alabama on the E., Arkansas and Louisiana on the W., Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico on the S.; area 46,810 square miles. The Mississippi river skirts the west border. A level tract, in which swamps alternate with prairies and pine-forests, stretches inland for 100 miles from the coast; elsewhere the surface consists for the most part of low hills or plateaus, except in the Yazoo Delta, which extends N. from Vicksburg to the borders of Tennessee. The greater part of the delta is now protected from the floods by levees, and that portion of it which has been taken into cultivation has proved exceedingly productive. The state contains much good pasture land, especially in the N.E. district. The products are exclusively agricultural, the chief being cotton, corn, and oats. In the south fruit and vegetables are grown largely for foreign consumption; and another important export is timber, which is prepared in the saw-mills on the Pascagoula and the Pearl. This state, originally part of the French colony of Louisiana, belonged to Great Britain since 1763; it was admitted into the Union in 1817.