1922-23 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND FORESTS 9 



$715,000 — Outside Service and Surveys. 



Over 50 per cent, of this increase is due to an extension to the Fire-ranging 

 Vote. During the past year the timbered areas of the Province were visited 

 by unprecedented fires and the entire outside fire organization had to be largely 

 augmented and special provision made to meet emergent conditions and 

 unexpected demands were thereby made upon the Crown. 



Forest-ranging: Over 25 per cent, of the increase is due to the additional 

 expenses involved in paying the scalers, all of whom are now appointed and 

 supervised by and under the direct control of the Government represented by 

 the Department. But while this increase is shown the fact remains that a 

 large percentage — over half; — of this money ultimately comes back as revenue 

 to the Crown, because under the system obtaining the timber operators in 

 some instances return the full 100 per cent, and in others 50 per cent., according 

 to contract, of the scalers' expenses to the Crown. 



Clearing townsites of fire hazards accounts for $90,000. Surveys of town- 

 ships, the running of meridian lines, etc., required $13,000 beyond last year. 



Reforestation cost over $60,000 beyond the previous year, this being due 

 to the adding of two new forest stations and properly equipping them, and 

 also enlarging by several millions the nursery stock of the forest station at 

 Norfolk. 



%\S6,QQ0— Colonization Roads. 



Increased requests for direct and by-law grants for colonization roads 

 to provide for the township needs required over $150,000 in excess of the year 

 1922. 



$1,188,000 — Northern Development Branch. 



This by far is the biggest increase in the expenditure under the jurisdiction 

 of the Department of Lands and Forests it being provided for by Statutory 

 enactment, the Government enactment being the Northern and Northwestern 

 Development Act. This additional amount was devoted to the building of new 

 trunk and lateral roads, making permanent improvements to old ones — the 

 putting in of culverts, and the general supervision of roads in the north country; 

 persistent and insistent demands emanating from the newer sections were em- 

 phasized by reference to the extensive expenditures on the public highways in 

 old Ontario and to the claims that older Ontario was being more favoured than 

 the newer part; the encouragement of settlement, the promotion of industry 

 and the general desire to link up the various settled portions in the North with 

 connecting roads, prompted, no doubt, the added expenditure in the road items. 

 In addition to the increased expenditure on roads generous relief was granted 

 to the settlers in the way of supplying seed and furnishing necessaries subsequent . 

 to the great fire in the fall of 1922. This catastrophe increased the expenditure 

 under the heading of assistance to settlers, which is included in the Northern 

 Development expenditure, by over $275,000. Farm implements have been 

 purchased and supplied to the fire sufferers on standing collateral. 



$346,000— 5pma/ Warrants. 



The increase in Special Warrants of over $300,000 is more than accounted 

 for by a Special Warrant of $400,000 having been passed as the result of a 

 surrender from and a treaty with the Mississauga and Chippewa Indians covering 

 some 21,000 square miles in the northern part of old Ontario, to which area 

 the Indians claimed title, no surrender ever having been made to the Crown. 

 Under a special agreement made in May, 1923, between the Provincial and 



