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Marketable Surpluses in Ontario Farming, 1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Marvin McInnis
Marvin McInnis*
Affiliation:
Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada
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Extract

It is now commonplace to acknowledge that self-sufficiency never really existed in North American farming. From the earliest years of settlement farmers had some degree of orientation to the market. Even on the frontiers of most recent settlement, farms generally could not be characterized as being of a wholly subsistence nature. Nor was there some mystic moment when agriculture shifted from self-sufficiency to commercialization. The real issue is the extent of commercialization at any time and place. One way of examining that is to determine the extent to which specialization and resort to the market was feasible, through assessing the magnitude of marketable surpluses. How much did farms typically produce over and above the consumption needs of their own households, and how did that vary according to circumstances?

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , Fall 1984 , pp. 395 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1984 

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Footnotes

fn00

Author’s Note: Someshwar Rao provided much appreciated assistance in the original assembly of the Canada West Farm Sample. James Nugent contributed valuably to the organization and handling of computer files of the data. Much of the analysis for the present article was done with the assistance of Heather Tremble. The financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.

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