190 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



surveys, the provision of proper water supplies and the securing of 

 close settlement are all matters which simply depend upon the kind 

 of management in force and not on any lack of legislative powers. 

 On every hand these things are admitted to be desirable in the inter- 

 ests of proper development and stable social conditions. Represen- 

 tative bodies are constantly passing resolutions in provincial centres 

 favouring improved facilities for better planning, co-operation, market- 

 ing of products, good roads and rural credit. As we have seen, com- 

 missions appointed to study education, unemployment and the cost 

 of living have come to the conclusion that rural problems cannot be 

 effectively solved without improved rural organization. But one 

 point which is usually overlooked is that improved rural organiza- 

 tion cannot be provided in any comprehensive way under our present 

 system of land development, and, in the absence of a scientifically 

 arranged system of highways. The tendency has been to approve 

 of the need of comprehensive co-operative organization but to ignore 

 it until after settlement has taken place, when it is too late to get 

 the advantages to be derived from it. In the past the organization 

 which has preceded settlement has usually been confined to that 

 which is sufficient to attract people to the land, and to secure accurate 

 measurement of the areas. In some cases this is being added to by 

 efforts to train the settlers, to give them some means of communica- 

 tion, and to assist them financially. But, with all these advantages, 

 success cannot be achieved because of the original handicap that suf- 

 ficient skill has not been applied to the laying out and classification 

 of the land. 



Dr. B. E. Fernow, in his report on the Conditions in the Clay Belt 

 of New Ontario, expresses the opinion that the experience of the less 

 prosperous parts of Ontario will be repeated in the clay belt unless 

 efforts are made to control development and to classify land for farm- 

 ing purposes. He gives extracts from the reports of the township 

 surveyors of one hundred townships to show that 20 per cent are poor 

 and not fit for farming purposes, 40 per cent are of medium quality, 

 and 40 per cent are deemed first class.* 



This clay belt comprises about 16,000,000 acres of land which, 

 in the opinion of the Provincial Department of Lands, Forests and 

 Mines, is estimated to be suitable for farming, and in Bulletin No. 

 11, published by the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway 

 Commission, it is stated that there is no place in Ontario where big- 

 ger crops of hay, roots, barley, peas and wheat can be grown. On 



* Conditions in the Clay Belt of New Ontario, Commission of Conservation 

 1913, Appendix 2. 



