RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 55 



ciency and the economic use and development of the land, it will be 

 found that every district will have to be considered on its merits. 

 Even on flat prairie land there are local considerations, position of 

 railways and rivers, etc., which prevent acceptance of a fixed and 

 general system as a means of making the best use of the land. 



Australia also suffers as the result of the adoption of the rectangu- 

 lar system of survey as a basis of land division and subdivision. The 

 need for some change is expressed in a letter addressed to the Premier 

 of Western Australia by Mr. G. M. Nunn, president of the Institution 

 of Surveyors of that state, from which the following quotation is taken : 



When providing for settlement in groups, it would be 

 advisable to abandon our present rectangular chess-board 

 designs for subdivision, and to adopt a system providing for 

 radial centres, where a few village lots could be set out, and 

 where the settlers could live closer together, and thus enjoy 

 a more sociable life. This system would be specially appli- 

 cable to the south coast country, where the farms would be 

 small in area. It would give better opportunities for visiting 

 experts to impart advice. It would stimulate the settler to 

 greater effort and would attract tradesmen, storekeepers, etc. 



No doubt there would be the same objections to a radial plan 

 as a fixed form of sub-division in Australia as in Canada. As already 

 stated, we should get away from any kind of fixed system — radial 

 or rectangular — which is independent of natural conditions. The 

 directness of route and closer settlement to be obtained by a radial 

 system of roads are only two of the matters to be borne in mind in 

 planning, although, other things being equal, the radial lines are pre- 

 ferable to the zig-zag roads of the right-angled plan. 



Mr. W. C. Morham, of New Liskeard, who has farmed for some 

 years in the clay belt of Northern Ontario, and Mr. A. C. Flumerfelt, 

 late Finance Minister of British Columbia, are among those who 

 advocate a radial plan. As a result of experience, both as a farmer 

 and as reeve of his township, Mr. Morham claims that 80 acres is 

 sufficient for a farm, especially for townsmen taking up farming. 

 He writes: — 



Such a scheme would make for economy of working and 

 largely solve the problem of the rural school, but no scheme 

 will be successful so long as land is held vacant ... It has 

 taken me some time to arrive at the best plan for laying out 

 the farm communities, and I have adopted the radial system 

 rather than the narrow rectangular lots, with the idea of get- 

 ting the dwellings close enough together to have a water ser- 

 vice to the houses. This, I think, is of immense importance. 

 W T edge shaped farms should not be greatly objected to, as 



