260 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



"In this brief paper I have endeavoured to examine into the- 

 advantages, and also the defects, of our system of survey, and I 

 have tried to show that the system is as good a one as could have been 

 devised. Now that the surveys have been extended over such a 

 wide extent of country, comprising almost all the prairie regions of 

 the Northwest, we can look at them as a whole, and consider whether 

 a system so perfect in principle has given in practice correspondingly 

 good results. I think the verdict of an impartial observer would be 

 that this has been the case, and that the surveys of the Northwest, 

 as regards accuracy, economy, and the rapidity of their execution, 

 can compare favourably with those of any other country in the 

 world." 



In the past various schemes have been devised for the planning 

 and development of a township having particular regard to the estab- 

 lishment of villages or hamlets and of providing thereto suitable means 

 of communication from the surrounding country. It is understood, 

 however, that none of these schemes, chief among which might be 

 mentioned the ingenious arrangement by Sir Wm. Van Home, have 

 ever been given a practical trial. 



It is evident that any general arrangement, however ingenious, 

 might still fail to meet particular topographic or other local condi- 

 tions. Further, in many such schemes the proposed triangular or 

 otherwise irregularly shaped farms would be a handicap to the settler 

 in working his holding. Considered purely as a problem in geometry, 

 Dr. E. Deville, Surveyor General of Dominion Lands, has recently 

 pointed out that the hexagonal system presents itself as a solution of 

 the hamlet colonization scheme and that the disadvantages of such 

 schemes are by this system reduced to a minimum. Fig. E. repre- 

 sents a township subdivided in accordance with the hexagonal system 

 with twelve farms of 160 acres each radiating from the centre. 



