RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 69 



township contains less than 40 per cent of good land the policy of 

 the Ontario Government is to keep it closed from settlement for the 

 growing of timber. The declared object of the Government is to 

 keep the lands of the Crown for the use for which they are best adap- 

 ted. Owing, however, to the great area of the province and the 

 scattered nature of the settlement it must be well-nigh impossible to 

 secure adequate inspection. There are 140,000,000 acres in Ontario. 

 In 1910 the Minister of Lands, Forests and Mines announced that 

 46,000,000 acres in the province had been surveyed and 24,000,000 

 acres alienated or located. Classification and inspection of such a 

 large area cannot be effectively performed unless preceded by more 

 elaborate and detailed plans of the land than are now prepared. 



The Immigration and Colonization Branch of the Manitoba 

 Government is now engaged in compiling information with a view 

 to classifying land in the province, and is making efforts to locate 

 settlers on the land best adapted for the class of farming they wish 

 to take up. 



In New Brunswick a survey of Crown lands for the purpose 

 of classification was inaugurated in 1916. The object of the survey 

 was to estimate the amount of timber on the land and to delineate 

 the land suitable for agricultural development.* An Act passed 

 in New Brunswick in 1912 created a Farm Settlement Board, which 

 is authorized to purchase abandoned farms, improve them and erect 

 buildings thereon, afterwards selling them to bona fide settlers. 



In British Columbia the need for better classification and bet- 

 ter planning was voiced at a meeting of the Advisory Board of the 

 Farmers' Institutes, held recently in Victoria. The board came to 

 the conclusion that the pre-emption system of land now in force in 

 the province was a failure and recommended that : 



Suitable areas of land in different portions of the province 

 be selected by competent agriculturists, the same to be avail- 

 able for homestead entry, and that other agricultural areas 

 not already alienated should be closed for settlement till fur- 

 ther lands are needed. It was argued that this would, in addi- 

 tion to assisting the individual farmer, be more economical 

 from the point of view of the administration of moneys, in 

 road and bridge building. 



Under the present system, pre-emptors often are isolated 

 altogether or are in small communities, and the government 

 must, if these farmers are to be taken care of, construct roads 

 for them and look after their transportation requirements. 



* "The Classification of the Crown Lands in New Brunswick," by P. Z. Caver- 

 hill, Eighth Annual Report, Commission of Conservation. 



