RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 



31 



The total area of land granted to railway companies by Dominion 

 and Provincial governments amounts to 55,740,249 acres, comprising 

 some of the best and most accessible land in the country, a large 

 portion being still unused. 



It is unnecessary to go on adding to these figures. They show 

 how great are the areas of land which lie within a short distance of 

 existing means of communication; how deplorable it is that fertile 

 sections of these lands remain unsettled and unproductive for some 

 reason, while settlers are abandoning remote territory because of the 

 social isolation and distance from railways; how wasteful it is that 

 such a great extent of territory is uninhabited where a farm popula- 

 tion could thrive and obtain social advantages, and how many and 

 how extensive are the opportunities for preparing a variety of schemes 

 of development which would secure permanent settlement under 

 sound economic conditions. 



The soil in the western provinces, of which so much is lying 

 idle in the hands of absentee speculators, has been described 

 by a high authority as worth "more than all the mines and 

 mountains from Alaska to Mexico and more than all the forests from 

 the United States boundary to the Arctic sea. . . . The worth of 

 the soil and subsoil cannot be measured in acres. The measure of 

 its value is the amount of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash which 

 it contains; in other words in its producing power." But there are 

 also large areas of poor, stony and muskeg land in the western pro- 

 vinces which are unsuitable for agriculture. A great deal of the land 

 near to the railways is barren and rocky and much of even the prairie 

 land is of poor quality. Care in classifying and planning the vacant 

 land near to the railways is required to enable economic use to be 

 made of it, just as in the case of more remote territory. 



DISTRIBUTION OF LAND IN CANADA 



Turning to another phase of the subject, the following table 

 regarding distribution of land in Canada will be found to be of inter- 

 est: 



DISTRIBUTION OF LAND IN CANADA IN 1901-1911.* 



* Canada Year Book, 1913, p. 146. 



t The total areas in the above table do not include the Yukon and Northwest 

 Territories and certain territory in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. 



