RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 255 



and the inferiority of the surveying instruments and the unskilful- 

 ness of the surveyor, and especially for want of check or proof lines."* 



It is not the intention to trace, in detail, the various methods 

 of land division practised in any province, but the earlier surveys of 

 Ontario and Quebec have been mentioned to emphasize the fact 

 that early Canadian surveys conformed largely to important topo- 

 graphical features, and that an endeavour was made, in some cases 

 at least, to have the roads established in the most suitable places. 



As settlement was forced still further back from the rivers or 

 other main determining topographical features the necessity for con- 

 formity to topography was not so immediately apparent. Further, 

 some changes were evidently necessary in the grossly inaccurate 

 methods adopted in the original surveys. Various systems were de- 

 vised, with apparently two primary objects in view. These were 

 to provide settlers with farms of a desirable shape and area and to 

 simplify as much as possible the method of survey. Not much 

 attention was given to topography. In some of the systems roads 

 were given a definite location, irrespective of what the particular 

 or local nature of the country might prove to be. In other cases 

 five per cent of each lot was reserved for road purposes. 



"It was impossible in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Pro- 

 vinces, which were wooded countries, and where the settlers selected 

 their locations along the banks of large rivers or lakes, to have any one 

 system of survey for the whole country, and the exigencies of each 

 case had to be met by surveys which would cover the wants of the 

 people. For this reason there has never been any uniform system 

 in these provinces. But where surveys were to be made in a large 

 extent of territory, and the opportunity was had of surveying it ahead 

 of settlement, it became the duty of the government to select such a 

 comprehensive survey system as would obviate all the difficulties 

 arising from irregular systems, "f 



As to the present methods of making surveys and dividing rural 

 lands in the six eastern provinces, the writer understands that but very 

 little has been done during the war by the provincial governments in 

 this respect. There are still, however, large tracts that could be made 

 available for settlement in Quebec and Ontario. 



In Quebec, townships have latterly been surveyed in the shape of a 

 square with sides 10 miles in length, the central line of the township 

 being run north or south astronomically (see Fig. B). From lake 

 Abitibi eastward a strip of territory in the vicinity of the Transcon- 

 tinental railway has been surveyed into these townships of 10 miles 

 square, which are definitely correlated by the system of survey, 

 though still as in the case of older townships designated by un- 

 related names. 



* From a paper on " Different Systems of Township Surveys," read by J. F. 

 Whitson, D.L.S., before the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors, in 1906, to 

 which paper the writer is indebted for much of his information in regard to the early 

 surveys carried out in Ontario. 



t From a paper read before the Association of Dominion Land Surveyors is 

 1885 by Dr. W. F. King, C.M.G., F.R.S.C., late Chief Astronomer, but at the time 

 Inspector of Dominion Lands Surveys. 



