1919-20 DEPARTMENT OF LANDS, FORESTS AND MINES. 7 



Settlers to the number of 539 proved up and acquired their patents for an 

 area of 55,000 acres against approximately 400 and an acreage of 36,000 for the 

 year 1918. An evidence of the desire of the settlers to maintain their payments 

 in respect of land purchases is found in the fact that the collections on account of 

 new and old sales exceeded last year's by nearly $30,000, although in a number 

 of cases where returned soldiers presented their credentials the arrears due the 

 Crown were remitted. Several old Clergy and Common School land sales were 

 paid in full and the proper claimants secured titles. 



The unsolved problems arising out of the war with the general state of unrest 

 and the somewhat restricted field from which to draw desirable settlers tend to with- 

 hold for the time being a rush to the northern sections of the Province. The 

 economic strain of modern life conduces to a desire to a hurried investment and 

 a quick and extensive return from the land rather than to an ambition to hew 

 out a home by steady and persistent pioneer methods. 



Flock going to pasture; Boulter Ranch, Nipissing District. 



With a gradual return, however, to more stable conditions and to a more 

 general realization of the necessity of putting in labour on the undeveloped lands 

 of the Crown to secure adequate crop results and, within a measurable degree of 

 success, a reasonable equilibrium between production and consumption, there shall 

 be an impetus to the " back to the land " movement. Any predictions apart from 

 this as respects land purchases and active settlement in Northern Ontario would 

 be unjustifiable in the face of problematical immigration conditions and the 

 financial aid and general appeal held out to returned men to resume the many 

 abandoned cleared farms in the older sections of the Province. 



Free Grants. 



There were 576 settlers who took up free homesteads within the year, or over 

 150 more than the previous year. The area thus located comprised 72,420 acres. 

 Patents for such homesteads issued to 431 while assignments numbering 253 



