50 COMMISSIONOFCONSERVATION 



the western provinces where some improvement in system might be 

 adopted. 



In parts of organized territory already divided and, to a more 

 or less extent, alienated in homesteads, some readjustment is still 

 possible, and in any event control of future development and of areas 

 where cancellation has taken place can be provided. There are 

 large areas of uncleared and swampy land near to towns and rail- 

 ways which can be rendered fertile at reasonable cost for clearance 

 and drainage, and a thorough survey of such land should be made 

 with a view to securing its improvement and development. But 

 any replanning as distinct from regulation of future growth of such 

 territory raises difficulties which can only be partly and slowly 

 overcome under expert advice. The whole matter should be 

 dealt with by a system so designed as to gradually secure closer 

 settlement, better facilities for making farming more attractive 

 and profitable than is practicable under the present method and for 

 the reduction of the unnecessary lengths of road reservations. Every 

 township boundary could be determined under the present system, 

 but no land should be homesteaded, or boundaries fixed, within the 

 township boundary until a proper plan of development for the whole 

 township was prepared and approved by an efficient director of sur- 

 veys acting in collaboration with a skilled director of planning 

 in each province. The farms should be laid out with proper regard 

 to the fullest and best use of the land, to convenience and ease of 

 access, to obtaining facilities for water supply, transportation, health, 

 amenity, etc., while the highway system would accord with a provincial 

 plan of main highways. 



A sketch showing the effect of one of the present systems, in 

 causing absurd intersections of land, is shown in figure 6. 

 It shows the boundary of farms in which small pieces of 

 land are cut off on one side of an unfordable river, making them 

 entirely useless to the farmers. In such cases the farmers may sell 

 the isolated portions to adjoining farmers, but that does not lessen 

 the absurdity of the plan. It also shows an area of 160 acres of good 

 farm land surrounded by rock and swamp of no . agricultural value. 

 This area is divided into four sections, which means that the farms 

 have each only a small acreage of land suitable for cultivation, and 

 even then only accessible across a swamp. Whatever may be the 

 proper kind of division in a case of this kind it is obvious that some 

 system should be adopted which would have regard to the use to 

 which the land was to be put. 



