interest at 6 per cent. But the price at which the lands are sold is so low -from 20 cents to 60 cents per acre (15d. to 2s. 54d. stg.)—that these conditions are not very burdensome.

The purchaser is required to take possession of the land sold within six months of the date of the sale, and to occupy it within two years. He must clear and have under crop, in the course of four years, ten acres for every hundred held by him, and erect a habitable house of the dimensions of at least 16 feet by 20 feet. The letters patent are issued free of charge.

The parts of the Province of Quebec now inviting colonization are the Lake St. John district, the valleys of the Saguenay, St. Maurice and the Ottawa rivers, the Eastern Townships, the Lower St. Lawrence, Lake Temiscamingue and Gaspé.

192. There are now in Nova Scotia about 1,500,000 acres of ungranted lands, a considerable quantity of which is barren and almost totally unfit for cultivation. Nearly all the best land has been sold or granted. The price of Crown Lands is $40 (£8 stg.) per 100 acres.

193. The grants of land to the early settlers in this province contained no systematic reservation of minerals. In some instances gold, silver and precious stones only were reserved; in other cases the gold, silver, iron, copper, lead, &c., were retained for a source of revenue to the Crown. (For mining regulations see Chap. XI.)

The Act of Settlement releases to the owner of the soil all gypsum, limestones, fireclay, barytes, manganese, antimony, &c., and any of the reserved minerals whenever the reservation is not specified in the original grants.

194. It is estimated that there are about 7,000,000 acres of ungranted land in New Brunswick.

Crown Lands may be acquired for actual settlement as follows:

:

1. Grants of 100 acres, by settlers over eighteen years of age, on conditions of improving the land to the extent of $20 (£4) within three months; building a house 16 by 20 feet, and cultivating 2 acres within one year; and continuous residence and cultivation of 10 acres within three years.

2. One hundred acres are given to any settler over eighteen years of age who pays $20 (£4) in cash, or does work on the public roads, &c., equal to $10 (£2) per annum for three years. Within two years a house 16 by 20 feet must be built and 2 acres of land cleared. Continuous residence for three years from date of entry, and the cultivation of 10 acres in that time are required.

3. Single applications may be made for not more than 200 acres of Crown Lands without conditions of settlement. These are put up to public auction at an upset price of $1 (4s. 2d.) per acre. Purchase money to be paid at Cost of survey to be paid by purchaser.

once.

195. Any person being the head of a family, a widow or a single man over eighteen years of age, and a British subject, or an alien purposing to become a British subject, can pre-empt 160 acres of land belonging to British Columbia west of Cascade Mountains, or 320 acres east of these mountains, at $1 per acre.

Two months' leave of absence under the Land Act,

and an additional four months for sufficient cause, when applied for to the Chief Commissioner, can be had in each year till the Crown deed is obtained. A certificate of improvement showing that the claim has been improved to the extent of $2.50 per acre is necessary before a Crown deed can be issued. Timber and hay lands may be leased from the Government. Timber lands pay a yearly rental of 10 cents per acre, and a royalty of 50 cents per 1,000 feet on all logs cut. Lease of land for other purposes may also be granted by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

196. There are about 45,000 acres of vacant Government land available in Prince Edward Island, consisting of forest lands of medium quality, and averaging in price about $1 an acre. Intending settlers are allowed ten years to pay for their holdings, the purchase money bearing interest at 5 per cent, and being payable in ten annual instalments.

197. The Canadian Pacific Railway lands consist of the odd-numbered sections along the main line and branches, and in the Saskatchewan, Battle and Red Deer River districts. Lands in the province of Manitoba average in price from $3 to $6 an acre; in the district of Assiniboia, east of the 3rd meridian, $3 to $4 an acre, and west of the 3rd meridian, including most of the valuable lands in the Calgary district, $3 an acre. Lands in the Saskatchewan, Battle and Red Deer River districts, $3 an acre.

If paid for in full at time of purchase, a deed of conveyance of the land will be given; but the purchaser may pay one-tenth in cash and the balance in payments spread over nine years, with interest at 6 per cent per annum, payable at the end of the year with each instalment.

Liberal rates for settlers and their effects will be granted by the company over its railway.

198. The land grant of the Manitoba South-western Colonization Railway Company, only recently placed on the market, contains over 1,000,000 acres of land, well adapted for grain growing and mixed farming, in a belt 21 miles wide, immediately north of the international boundary, and from range 13 westward. The terms of purchase are the same as those of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.

199. The Alberta Railway and Coal Company owns, in the district of Alberta in the North-west Territories, 300,000 acres of farming and grazing prairie lands. These are situated principally between the international boundary and Lethbridge, the site of the company's collieries.

The company have for sale blocks of land from 10,000 to 30,000 acres in extent, for grazing or colonization purposes. Full information and plans may be obtained from the company's offices at Lethbridge.

200. The Calgary and Edmonton Railway Company's land grant consists of about 1,900,000 acres of agricultural and ranching lands in Alberta, and a report on any section can be seen at the company's land office in Winnipeg.

The railway runs through the centre of the district in which the lands are situated, connecting with the Canadian Pacific Railway at Calgary.

At present the majority of the lands (within easy reach of the railway) are offered at $3.

Terms, one-tenth cash, and balance in nine equal yearly payments, interest at 6 per cent.

201. The Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railway Company's land grant consists of about 1,500,000 acres of good agricultural land in the Saskatchewan district, and a report on any section can be seen at the company's land office in Winnipeg.

The Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railway runs through the district, connecting with the Canadian Pacific Railway at Regina.

At present the majority of the lands (within easy reach of the railway) are offered at $3 per acre Terms, one-tenth cash, and balance in nine equal yearly payments, interest at 6 per cent.

CHAPTER V.

Forest wealth. --Statistician's report.—Census of forest products.—Value of forest products. --Exports.-Wood pulp.-Industries using wood.-Timber leases in Crown Lands.— Cut on timber lands.-Receipts from licenses.-Areas of forest and wood land.-Forests of Europe.

202. The natural resources of Canada are her forests, her farms, her fisheries and her minerals.

203. The forest wealth of Canada has been made the subject of investigation, during the year 1893-94, by the Statistician of the Department of Agriculture, and a volume of over 300 pages has been published as an appendix to the Minister's report for 1894. (This report can be obtained from the Department of Agriculture or from the Queen's Printer, Ottawa.)

204. In his introductory remarks the Statistician says:

"The influence of forests on climate, on agricultural operations, on river fisheries, on water communications, on the health of the people and on the general trade and industries of a country is so far reaching that an examination of the value of our forests branches out in many directions, all of immense importance.

"The important direct effects of forests are due to the products which they yield, the capital which they represent and the work which they provide.

"The mechanical effect of forests makes itself felt chiefly in regard to the distribution of the rain water, the preservation of the soil on sloping ground, the binding of moving sand, and the prevention of avalanches.

"In Canada, in the various industries depending for their existence upon the supply of wood, there is an invested capital not far from 100 million dollars and an annual wage list of over thirty (30) million dollars, with an output valued at over 110 million dollars.

"In addition there are the railways which are dependent on the wood supply for railway ties (1) and dimension timber, and in whose freights the lumber carried figures as nearly one-fifth of the total freight carried; the canals, of whose freights the products of the forest constitute two-fifths of the total freight carried; the mines, which require wood for shoring purposes;

(1.) Including sidings and double tracks we have about 18,590 miles of railway in Canada. At 3,000 ties to the mile the ties required number 55,770,000. Assuming the life of a tie to be seven (7) years the number needed every year is about eight (8) million for renewals, and allowing 300 miles for new roads every year a million more for this purpose or about nine (9) million ties a year. Supposing that 50 cubic feet of ties can be obtained from an acre of forest, it will be seen that 3,340,000 acres will be required to supply the consumption of young and thrifty trees needed for the 18,590 miles, and 530,000 acres for each year's demand.

the ships which, themselves made of wood, find in our exports (1) of the forest the materials for the full cargo, without which freight and rates on goods carried must be higher, nearly one-quarter of the exports of home production being products of the forest; the leather industry, which depends upon nature's supply of tannin secreted in the bark of trees; the lucifer match industries, those varied industries which depend in part upon wood, such as agricultural implements, edged tools, &c., and the practically new industry of pulp making, which within ten years has sprung up into an industry with nearly three million dollars of invested capital and over one million dollars of annual output.

205. "The value of forest products consumed per capita may be estimated approximately. The value of our forest products, calculated from the census returns of 1891, was $80,071,415. For the fiscal year 1890-91 our imports of wood articles amounted to $3,132,516, while for the same period our exports were $27,707,547, leaving for consumption in Canada $55,996,384, or a value of $15.59 a head. With respect to the quantity used the ce..sus returns show an aggregate of 2,045,073,072 cubic feet as the total cut of the year. About 30 per cent of this is exported, leaving 1,431,551,150 cubic feet for the annual home consumption. This is equal to 296-2 cubic feet per head of the population. B. E. Fernow, chief of the Forestry division of the United States Department of Agriculture, estimates that the per capita consumption of the United States is about 350 cubic feet annually.

206. "Whether we consider the capital invested, the labour employed, and the varied uses to which wood is put in the enhancement of our comfort and convenience; or whether we consider the permanent interests of the timber trade, of the settlers in our new country, of the public revenue and of the country generally, we are forced to regard the forest as a precious heirloom to be deeply revered, properly used and, through careful maintenance, to be handed down to posterity improved and enriched.

"Looked at from the most enlarged point of view, the forests of Canada are her greatest heritage, because the nations or states in which food, fuel, metal and timber may be produced at the highest relative rates of wages and at the lowest money-cost per unit of product will thereby be enabled to apply labour saving machines to other branches of productive industry in the most effective manner.' The nation that would succeed in effecting this combination can do so only by maintaining its forests in their best possible condition, since, of the four factors described, the timber is the most easily exhausted. The nation which succeeds in this four-fold combination must be at the head of all nations in the long run.

"At the very outset of the enquiry great difficulties were encountered in the effort to secure trustworthy data. These difficulties were increased from the fact of the divided control and ownership.

207. "The ownership of Canadian forests is for the most part vested in the Provincial Governments, including the provinces of Ontario, Que

(1.) Canada is the fourth largest exporter of products of the forest, being only exceeded by Sweeden and Norway with a net export of $37,135,000; by Austria with a net export of $31,000,000 and by Russia with $33,300,000. On a per head basis, Canada stands second, her net export in 1891 having been $24,564,869, equal to $5.08 per head against Sweden and Norway's $5.50, Austria's 75 cents and Russia's 34 cents per head.