RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 63 



met with the argument that a city or town grows and that it is not 

 practicable to artificially direct its growth. To anyone who is ac- 

 quainted with the process of town development on the American 

 continent this argument must sound absurd, since there could be 

 nothing more artificial than the method of laying out and developing 

 cities and towns in the United States and Canada. 



Sites for new towns are most frequently selected by the railway 

 companies which, naturally, have regard, in the first place, to the 

 locations most convenient for the area served by the railway, and, in 

 the second place, to what will assist them in selling and developing their 

 own land. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company says its real 

 interest in the settlement of land only begins after the land is sold 

 to the settler, and it has demonstrated this by the way in which it 

 operates demonstration farms and employs expert advice for those 

 who colonize under its system. The business instinct of this and other 

 companies naturally leads them to select the townsites most useful to 

 them — although the selection may not be the best for the public inter- 

 est as a whole. 



In the Manual of Instructions to Dominion Land Surveyors the 

 following directions or suggestions have been given to surveyors in 

 regard to the division of townsites: — 



54. The streets and avenues of a townsite usually cross each 

 other at right angles. The direction of the streets and ave- 

 nues is made to conform to the natural features of the 

 ground, the avenues following what is expected to be the 

 direction of the main traffic. No street or avenue is less 

 than 66 feet. (Main streets or avenues may be 99 feet). 



57. Lots are usually made 66 ft. x 99 ft. or 50 ft. x 150 ft. When 

 lots are laid out less than 66 feet a lane not less than 20 feet 

 wide must be made at the rear of the lots. 



While the above appear to be the general rules it is stated that 

 the method may be varied to suit circumstances, and due attention 

 must be given to provincial law. The suggestion that the direction 

 of the streets conform to the natural features need hardly be made, 

 since the surveyor is so prescribed by the right-angled system, and by 

 the width and depth of lots, that he can only consider natural features 

 within very narrow limits. 



A townsite plan prepared under the Dominion rules is illus- 

 trated in figure 16. These rectangular plans, with their unnec- 

 essarily wide streets and lanes, after every allowance is made for their 

 advantages, have not led to good results. The wide streets and lanes 

 have not given air space, because the cost of paving and maintaining 



