Report of the Minister of Lands and Forests 

 of the Province of Ontario 



For Year ending 31st October, 1924. 



LAND TRANSACTIONS 



To record with any degree of detail the land transactions during the past 

 year would be impossible in a brief space, as they not only cover a large variety 

 of purposes but extend over a wide area. 



For agricultural purposes in pioneer settling there were slight increases in 

 the number of free grant locations over the previous year although the areas 

 allocated for free homesteading is gradually lessening, this class of land having 

 been largely sought and granted in the past. The purchase of lands at fifty cents 

 an acre for similar purposes increased considerably throughout the year, a large 

 number having availed themselves of farm lands in the great clay belt traversed 

 by the Transcontinental Railway. Additional lands opened in the vicinity of 

 Kapuskasing and Hearst were eagerly sought. The opening of the lands was 

 restricted to stretches immediately contiguous to the line of railway, the idea 

 being to encourage compactness rather than isolation of settlement, and thus 

 develop more readily community life and reduce the per capita cost of road 

 construction. 



An important step was taken by the government to foster settlement in 

 Northern Ontario, by the appointment of a supervisor of settlement, in the per- 

 son of Colonel W. R. Smyth, a northern pioneer of many years' standing, a former 

 Member of the Legislature of Ontario and later of the House of Commons. His 

 knowledge and experience of the great northland will lessen the task of developing 

 a system of closer co-operation between the Department and settler, whereby 

 the latter's needs can be more closely studied and sympathetic treatment ac- 

 corded. 



Parts of new townships were opened for settlement in the Thunder Bay 

 District, where a keen demand arose for land on the part of a number of Scan- 

 dinavians, whose general adaptabilities for pioneering work in this section are 

 recognized, and whose expressed desires for agricultural areas may result in sub- 

 stantial farming settlements. 



The past year showed the greatest advance in pioneer land settlement since 

 the war. Notwithstanding the fact that no new land was opened as free grants 

 during the season, 98,487 acres were granted to actual settlers free, as compared 

 with 90,143 during 1923. 



In the purchased lands there is a ma/ked increase over the former year, of 

 approximately 30,000 acres, the actual figures for 1923 being, 137,977 acres, as 

 compared with 165,184 acres. Settlement shows a very marked improvement 

 in stability, the number of assignments in both free grant and sale land being 

 considerably less. 



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