Central to the federal government's plan to settle the West was the township and its quarter-section homesteads. As shown here, the typical township had 36 sections, each of which measured one square mile (640 acres) and was divided into quarter sections. The even-numbered sections (shown here in green) were reserved by the federal government for free homestead grants, and the odd-numbered sections (shown in pink) were reserved as grants to the railways and as school lands (that is, lands to be sold by the Crown to defray provincial and territorial school expenses). Sections 8 and 26 were part of the lands awarded to the Hudson's Bay Company under the terms of the transfer of Rupert's Land.