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The Distribution of Tenant Agriculture: Ontario, Canada, 1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

William L. Marr
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Extract

Economic Historians in the United States have begun to take up the study of tenant agriculture in that country from the perspective first of describing the characteristics of tenant farmers and their contracts, and second, of explaining the changes in tenancy over time and the spatial distribution of tenant farms at one specific point in time (e.g., Reid, 1973, 1976, 1979; Alston, 1981; Alston & Higgs, 1982; and Higgs, 1973).

This effort continues the work of earlier generations of historians and agricultural economists. In contrast, almost nothing has been done on tenant farming in Canada even though in Ontario in 1871 about 16% of all farms were tenant occupied with some census districts such as York having approximately 30% of their farms in the control of tenants (Canada, 1870-1871). For example R. L. Jones’s book (1946), which represents the most thorough study of Ontario’s agriculture before the 1880s, contains almost no reference to tenant agriculture.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Summer 1987 , pp. 169 - 186
Copyright
copyright © Social Science History Association 1987 

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