52 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



bend and twist of the water area, and there is no latitude for improv- 

 ing the alignment to shorten distances or avoid the tortuous windings. 



While, therefore, it is desirable to protect the edges of the water 

 areas and to have roads in many cases running nearly parallel with 

 rivers and around lakes, the roads should be designed as part of 

 a plan and should not follow a meaningless and arbitrary line. As 

 at present laid out they are merely an expedient to get over one of 

 the anomalies of the present system of fixing the farm boun- 

 daries. The division of many of the farms shown on figure 7 

 leads to great waste of land, to the splitting up of homesteads 

 adjoining water areas in shapes and sizes that cannot be used or 

 developed, to the placing of roads in the worst positions to secure 

 bridges over streams, and to cul-de-sac roads running to an end at 

 the water edge or at the foot of steep hills. 



The system of land survey in the railway belts of the western 

 provinces is not only unsatisfactory, as a system of planning, but 

 the method which has been adopted, of allocating certain sections 

 to the railway companies and other sections to the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, interspersed with other sections retained by the Dominion 

 Government, makes proper planning impossible — unless by co-oper- 

 ation between the companies and the government before settle- 

 ment takes place. In this case there is not only a hard and fast 

 system of sub-division, but also a separate ownership of alternative 

 sections, which adds to the difficulty of applying any discretion to 

 the planning of the areas. A township allocated according to this 

 system is show on figure 8. 



Object of Surveys 



In spite of their defects, however, it is probable that no better 

 series of systems of surveying lands could have been devised when we 

 have regard to the object of making the surveys. That object — im- 

 portant in itself — was to secure accurate measurements and divisions 

 of the land for rapid settlement; and the fact that it did not include a 

 topographical survey, a scheme of classification of the land and plan- 

 ning of the roads was no fault of the surveyor. His duties have been cir- 

 cumscribed within a narrow radius and within that radius he has 

 performed his task with great skill and energy. Under the leader- 

 ship of Dr. Deville, the Surveyor General, the surveyors of Canada 

 have given able and devoted service to the country, and it is 

 necessary to make it quite clear that what is objected to is not 

 the work or methods of the surveyor, nor the rectangular system as 

 a means to secure accurate measurement, but to the scope of the sur- 



