464 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. . [Voy. VIIL.. 
veyed and subdivided in this area, probably over one hundred; a railway 
has been built by the Province running into this Clay Belt through the 
eastern portion of it for a distance of about one hundred miles. Only 
seven townships out of the hundred have been declared open for settle- 
ment, although the railwav has been running into it now for two years. 
There have also been established two Crown Lands Agencies for the sale 
of land, one at Matheson, and one at Cochrane, the junction point between 
the Provincial Government Railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific. The 
Cochrane Agency has four townships for settlement; the Matheson Agen- 
cy has three. These two agencies are about fifty miles apart. The inter- 
vening townships, although lying along the railway, are not yet open for 
settlement. No roads have been built as yet in the district, or no attempt 
to assist settlement made further than to provide prospective settlers 
with the opportunity to apply for land locally. 
The settlement of Northern Ontario is not an easy matter. In the 
first place the growing season is short owing to the climate. ‘The land is 
all tree covered, and has to be cleared at a very great expenditure of labour 
and time. In attracting settlers to this country we have to compete 
against the prairie lands of the western provinces where the land is said 
to be ready for the plough, and towards the settlement of which the whole 
energy of the Dominion Department of Immigration is directed. 
A settler going to the northwest, however, needs to have sufficient 
means to enable him to live for the few months necessary to secure a crop 
from his land. The result is that most settlers with any means go to the 
northwest, leaving only those who are too poor to undertake the long 
expensive trip and wait for returns, to settle up the lands in Northern 
Ontario. ‘These settlers in Ontario are usually able to live from the pro- 
ceeds of the timber on the land that they purchase from the Crown, at 
least during the time that timber is being harvested. 
The ordinary settler going there without means is obliged to seil the 
merchantable timber from all over his lot of one hundred and sixty acres 
to provide himself with the means of living, or else he is obliged to go off 
his land and work for someone else for wages. Owing to the building of 
railways and other public works, this labour has so far been largely avail- 
able, but while he is lumbering or while he is working on the railway or 
elsewhere for wages, he is not improving his land, hence agricultural 
development in Northern Ontario has been exceedingly slow. | 
In 1901 the writer organized a land seekers’ excursion to the district 
of Temiskaming, a million acre tract of land south of the Clay Belt, but 
