RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 193 



In many districts settlement has to be encouraged at a distance 

 from the railways and village centres because there are often large 

 areas of marshy, rocky and unfertile soil adjacent to these railways 

 and centres. But a great deal of this land could be made suitable 

 for cultivation after the expenditure of a comparatively small sum for 

 drainage or some other kind of improvement. But it requires less or- 

 ganization, less skill and less expenditure to deal with the land that is 

 naturally adaptable for agriculture than that which requires artificial 

 improvement. Because of the unwillingness to meet the cost of 

 such improvement the settlement is permitted to be scattered and 

 "buffer" areas of intervening land are created between the settlers 

 and their marketing facilities. More effort should be made to secure 

 settlement on some of the crown lands near railways which can be 

 converted into good farming land at a reasonable cost for drainage. 



The question of draining land is not only important in the above 

 connection, but is also of great importance in connection with the 

 improvement of large areas already settled. There are many farms 

 which are just drained enough by natural means to make them work- 

 able, but more drainage is needed to improve their fertility to the 

 point of making them really profitable to their owners. In some of 

 the older parts of organized territory large areas of land which are 

 close to markets and good means of communication have long re- 

 mained sparsely settled because of the proportion of these areas 

 which is water-logged or marshy in character. Much of this land 

 is of the most fertile kind, but, for lack of government policy to pro- 

 mote its improvement, it has to remain in what is practically an idle 

 condition. Private capital is not available to improve it on any large 

 scale. Such land should either be purchased by governments, as 

 is done in Australia and other countries, and sold for re-settlement, 

 after being improved; or government aid on liberal terms should be 

 given to owners to make the improvements, subject to re-payment of 

 principal and interest over a period of years. Large sections of the 

 best land in England, which is to-day producing the finest market 

 garden crops, especially in the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridge- 

 shire, have been reclaimed by drainage. The cost of drainage of 

 such land is less on the average than the irrigation of dry land, and 

 probably more permanent results can be obtained. 



It has been demonstrated in the farm work of the Dominion 

 Board of Agriculture that seeding should be completed as early as 

 possible in the spring in order that good crops may be obtained and, 

 owing to the climatic conditions in Canada good drainage is essential 

 to permit of early seeding. 



