DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS FOR 1933 9 



short years will cease as arrears due on old sales are met and certain of the 

 lands revert to the Crown. Practically all these old cases are within territory 

 opened for sale in old Ontario prior to or about Confederation, and although 

 repeated efforts have been made to get the present occupants or claimants 

 to clean up titles and secure patents, a large number still remain indifferent, 

 feeling, doubtless, that as long as they are shewing occupancy and paying 

 taxes the Crown will not molest them. The Crown's protection lies in the 

 land and improvements, if any, thereon, and consequently ejection for non- 

 payment is not resorted to. During these troublous periods it is recognized 

 that it is difficult to meet payments as and when due, and in consequence 

 leniency is exercised in the case of deserving delinquents. 



Free Grant locations during the year approximated the same activity as 

 last year, some six hundred and two having acquired Free Grant holdings 

 against thirty-two fewer last year, while the Crown resumed lots in the case 

 of four hundred and forty-six locatees who for various reasons had failed to 

 meet their requirements. Details of transactions in Free Grant territory 

 may be seen in Appendix No. 12. 



Slightly over nine hundred purchased land for agricultural purposes, each 

 paying his minimum of one quarter cash. Due, however, to the stress of times 

 and inability to get work in camps, and failure to even make any attempt 

 at actually pioneering, some eleven hundred lots were cancelled. Of course 

 in many instances applicants after having been allotted the lands did not enter 

 into possession, and the close and continuous checking and inspecting by the 

 outside staff resulted in such lots being resumed. 



The ratio by Districts of Sales and Free Grants is as follows: 



Sales Free Grants 



Algoma 11 Algoma 2 



Cochrane 595 Kenora 56 



Kenora 14 Nipissing 47 



Nipissing 11 Sudbury 134 



Sudbury 72 Parry Sound 34 



Temiskaming 113 Thunder Bay 136 



Thunder Bay 39 Muskoka 46 



Rainy River 110 



Sundry 62 Sundry 37 



Total 917 Total 602 



It will be noted that the most of the Sales were in the Clay Belt, and nearly 

 Eighty Per Cent of the Free Grants in Northern Ontario. Reports from 

 Homestead Inspectors and other officials indicate that an unusually large 

 area has been cleared and stumped the last year or so by those who are remain- 

 ing on the land in the hope of finally succeeding. 



At best the lot of the pioneer is venturesome, and the uncertainty of 

 the struggle for an existence in the case of an unsubsidized Settler is more 

 accentuated during a depression that has so adversely affected the great lumber 

 and forest products industry, upon which so many of the new landseekers 

 naturally depend for seasonal employment to tide them over the early stages 

 of hewing out and undertaking to maintain a home in the North land. With 



