RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 49 



natural boundaries should be used as alternatives to the artificial lines 

 of the surveyor and greater discretion should be employed in deter- 

 mining which boundary to use in the smaller units. It is recognized, how- 

 ever, that there have been certain difficulties to be surmounted in a 

 country where the system of land registration required divisions to be 

 made for large areas for settlement before the land could be surveyed in 

 detail. For county areas, perhaps, the rectangular system could not be 

 greatly improved upon, except by making deviations at the edges of 

 lakes and at river intersections. 



Township Planning 



It is, however, when we get down to the units or sections that 

 lie within the township that greater room for improvement is 

 found. Whatever excuse there may have been in the past for rigid 

 adherence to the rectangular sections, because of the want of men and 

 organization to plan these sections with some regard to physical 

 conditions and future development, there is no longer any excuse for 

 such adherence — although in the case of purely level land, without 

 river intersections, this kind of plan is satisfactory from some points 

 of view. 



In territory to be opened up in future a more elastic system of 

 planning should be followed within township boundaries, and regard 

 should be paid to future development, to existing railways, topo- 

 graphy, character of soil, and other physical considerations, without 

 any sacrifice of accuracy. The increased cost of making more detailed 

 surveys than at present would be small compared with the saving that 

 could be effected in getting roads in the right place, in lessening the 

 length of roads, and in securing economic distribution of the land; 

 and also compared with the advantages which could be obtained 

 in greater convenience and healthier conditions of develop- 

 ment. Moreover, the surveys need not be spread over 

 such large areas and should follow a more concentrated system 

 of land settlement, dealing first with the more fertile lands and with 

 those lying nearest to the means of distribution. It is a fact that, 

 even with the absence of any plan of agricultural areas in older coun- 

 tries like England, the results are better in important respects than in 

 Canada with its rectangular system, because, in the former case, 

 some purpose of using and developing the land has been the primary 

 consideration in its planning, rather than simplicity and accuracy of 

 arrangement to suit a particular mode of placing settlers. There 

 are still enormous areas of new territory in Quebec, Ontario, and in 



