Lecture 4: Agriculture Prior to Confederation

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Lecture 4Agriculture Prior to Confederation
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Last time

• Despite massive interventionism
• subsidies, grants, bounties, free land, free
  clothes, free seed, free implements, among others
• Problems persisted in agriculture in Lower and
  Upper Canada and in the Maritimes.

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Lower Canada

• Lots initial enthousiasm
• First English Governor of Québec General James
  Murray (1764-1768)
• His observations
• Too many horses and too few cattle
• French colonists were lazy and preferred guns
• Cultivation of hemp and flax
• Potash had a great potential as a new staple
  product

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Upper Canada

• Agriculture was a means attracting United Empire
  Loyalists (prior to 1783), followed later by
  Americans.
• Agricultural expansion directly linked to
  immigration
• 200 acres to each immigrant who applied, paid a
  processing fee, and took an oath of allegiance to
  the King.

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Upper Canada

• Advantages arose from geography trade
• Water ways when almost no roads existed
• Highway H2O
• Military markets
• Montréal, Kingston, Niagara
• Overseas markets
• Wheat when harvests were poor in England
  (1800-1810).

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War of 1812-15

• June 18, 1812 US declared war on England for,
  among other reasons, restricting American hemp
  trade with France, which was illegal under
  international law.
• Underscored the importance of the linkages
  between settlement, defense and agriculture.
• Temporary interest in agriculture in Upper and
  Lower Canada
• Source of food and feed for soldiers and horses.

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New Staples Wheat and Timber

• Until 1820 little surplus of any agricultural
  commodities
• Montréal fur trade failed in 1821 merchants
  scrambled for alternatives
• Timber and wheat come to displace fur as staple
  trades of the St. Lawrence
• Canal, and later railway, infrastructure become
  critical.

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Nova Scotia

• The settlement policy for agriculture in Nova
  Scotia up to 1775
• Land grants to settlers from New England
• Same policy as after the expulsion of the
  Acadians in 1755.
• Purpose
• provide food that otherwise would have to be
  imported
• an objective which became even stronger after
  1783.

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Bountiful Bounties?

• Beginning in 1805, the English government used
  bounties to encourage agriculture settlement
• 15shilllings/acre later on a per bushel basis
• Bounties and production contracts ended after the
  1812-1815 War and a depression followed
• Plea for taxpayer financed relief because of crop
  failures, not bounties
• Commercial and farm outlook was grim.

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Agricola and the Central Board of Agriculture of
Nova Scotia

• Revival
• 1818 Letters to the editor in the Acadian
  Recorder signed Agricola, the Latin term for
  farmer
• Blamed the malaise in agriculture on a lack of
  taxpayer funded agricultural societies, which
  according to Agricola, had done so much to
  develop agriculture in Europe and the United
  States.
• Effectiveness
• Central Board of Agriculture formed with 350
• 7 year charter with 1,500
• Agricola elected secretary, before his identity
  was publicly known
• He turned out to be a Halifax merchant named John
  Young

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Agricola and the Central Board of Agriculture of
Nova Scotia

• Problems
• Enthousiasm ?
• Farmers
• Boards advice impractical.
• Spending priorities wrong, particularly Youngs
  salary.
• Young is a merchant, not a farmer.
• Central Board did little to improve the situation
  of the farmer.
• When economic conditions improved, the Boards
  activities declined and then terminated in 1826.

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New Brunswick

• Government incentives provided to 12,000
  Loyalists to settle in the St. John River Valley
  in 1783.
• They initially came to farm, but soon lured by
  profits in lumbering (pine).
• Most food supplies needed to furnish the rapidly
  expanding lumber industry (1809-1851) were
  imported.

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New Brunswick

• As long as the lumber industry there was no
  problems with food imports
• But the elimination of British timber preference
  and the substitution of iron in place of wood led
  to problems.
• Government aid to farmers requested
• 1820 Emigrant aid and agricultural societies
  were formed all over the province with the double
  objectives of
• improving agriculture, and
• assisting immigrants settle on their forest farms.

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PEI

• PEI
• Primary commodities
• Horses, hay, oats, cattle, sheep, pork and bacon
• In other Maritime regions focus on animal
  husbandry
• Conditions were naturally more favourable to
  livestock rather than cereal production
• Reasons for success in agriculture in PEI
• Good climate, fertile soil, and few alternatives

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1783-1849

• Four main ag policies in Upper and Lower Canada,
  and in the Maritimes as well
• Immigration
• Agricultural Societies
• Land grants
• Subsidization

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Immigration and Land settlement in the Canadas

• Continued stream of American immigrants until
  1812.
• Before 1827
• free land, but little encouragement otherwise.
• After 1827
• land for farming was offered for sale to settlers
  from land companies
• Large land transfers
• Huron Tract 1 million acres in Upper Canada to
  the Canada Land Company for 341,000.
• 847,661 acres in Lower Canada (around Sherbrooke)
  to the British American Land Company for
  120,000.
• Population explosion 1825-1850
• 1825 Upper Canada 158,000 Lower Canada 479,000
• 1850 Upper Canada 791,000 Lower Canada 840,000

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Agricultural Societies

• Object to improve agriculture
• First agricultural societies
• Québec, Montréal and Trois Rivières
• 2,000 aid transferred.
• Method Transfer taxpayer dollars to farmers
• Difficulties
• Urban composition
• Paternalism
• Effect on farming negligible.

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Grants and Subsidies

• Amounts varied from time to time.
• Provided by government when economic conditions
  were perceived to be adverse.
• Intended to be temporary
• until such time as fishing, fur-trading,
  shipbuilding and lumbering became more
  prosperous.
• Milton Friedman (1976 Nobel Prize in Economics)
•  Nothing is so permanent as a temporary
  government program 

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Grants and Subsidies

• Amounts were never large
• 1840 1,683 in Upper Canada
• 1850 12,000 in both Upper and Lower Canada
• Reflects the lukewarm government interest in
  agriculture and that any benefits were bound to
  be small.

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Summary

• Rapid progress in agriculture
• Upper Canada
• Montréal developed into a major business hub
• Fur, timber and grains.
• Agriculture in Maritimes
• Supporting role for fishing and lumbering
• Cattle important.

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Settlement, Agriculture and Tradeto 1849

• Overview
• Immigration, land settlement
• Farming methods
• Trade policy flip-flops
• Advances in transportation railways

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Immigration

• They came in waves
• Small numbers
• 1815 (war), 1832 1834 (cholera epidemic),
  1837(rebellion)
• Large numbers
• 1826-1832, 1847-48 (Irish potato famine)

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Grosse Île, Québec

• 1832 1937 used to quarantine immigrants. 6000
  are buried there.
• In 1847 during a typhus epidemic immigrants
  arriving from Ireland on the coffin ships -
  overcrowded freighters that people escaping the
  famine were crammed into - died in the thousands.
  
• The children of those who died were adopted by
  French-Canadians and allowed to keep their Irish
  names. Today among French speakers of Quebec,
  Johnson, O'Neill, Blackburn and Ryan are common
  names.

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Immigration

• Various backgrounds, not all penniless, sick,
  diseased and/or starving.
• Most came to the Canadas, expecting to buy land
  and become farmers.
• Upper Canada was the preferred by many to Lower
  Canada.
• As immigration ?, there was a need for
• transportation facilities
• rough merchandising and service equipment
• milling equipment
• instruments and implements for farm and farm home

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Land Settlement

• The rate at which land was settled was a function
  of the inflow of immigrants and how quickly they
  could clear land and become effective producers
  of commodities particularly wheat.

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Land Settlement

• 3 categories of settlers
• Arrivals without cash who after having cleared
  land for others could then purchase land
• Arrivals with cash who could purchase unimproved
  land.
• Arrivals with considerable cash who could
  purchase an operating farm at once.
• In 1820s, a 200 acre farm, partially cleared
  250 - 900

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Farming Methods circa 1830

• Primitive wasteful from the perspective of
  visiting British
• Contrast with the careful ploughing and planned
  rotations in England.
• Economic reason
• Equipment expensive,
• land cheap,
• transportation and tree removal costly

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Crops circa 1830

• Land clearing technology
• Trees girlded, left to die, then burned.
• Trees felled, cut into logs, burning everything
  not directly useful.
• The resulting potash was exported and used in
  chemical and textile production in England.
• First year
• wheat sown around stumps
• Second year
• plant potatoes, corn, rye or buckwheat.
• After a few years
• the stumps could be removed or burned and the
  land subsequently ploughed.

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Machinery circa 1830

• Few and simple
• Axes, spades, hoes, etc
• One manual labour saving device
• Heavy harrow
• On established farms
• Grain craddle, wagon and plough

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Agricultural Trade Policy 1815-1846

• Two objectives
• Secure entry of Canadian grain into England with
  zero or reduced import taxes.
• To establish the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence route
  as the principal corridor for the export of grain
  from Upper Canada, and more importantly, from the
  American Mid-West.

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Agricultural Policy 1815-1846

• Major Policy Instrument
• The British Corn Laws
• Enforced between 1815 and 1846
• English import taxes designed to support and
  protect domestic British grain prices against
  competition from less expensive imports.
• Another example of British mercantilism.

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The Effect in Canada

• Canadian wheat received, but variable,
  preferential treatment
• 1815 If price in England was above 8?
  shillings/bushel, Canadian wheat could be
  imported.
• 1822 If price in England was above 7?
  shillings/bushel, Canadian wheat could be
  imported, but only after a per bushel import tax
  was paid.
• Problem The merchant arranging delivery in
  Montréal had no idea whether grain would be
  admitted in England. Lack of forward marketing
  arrangements.
• 1828 solution Import tax of ? shillings/bushel
  at all times, to increase to 2? shillings/bushel
  if the British price was below 8?
  shillings/bushel.

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One market intervention begets another, and
another, and another..

• British government did not want to grant Canadian
  producers unhampered access to the domestic
  market.
• Fear British market might be flooded by
  American flour, which shipped to Canada, milled
  there and then exported through the St. Lawrence
  as Canadian produce.
• Solution You guessed it.. Impose taxes on
  American wheat and flour coming into Canada.
  (Colonial Trade Act)
• 1 shilling/bushel wheat, 5 shillings/barrel of
  flour.

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Agrarian Discontent

• 1831-1835 Excellent harvest in England.
• Imports of Canadian wheat almost zero.
• Colonial Trade Act repealed in 1831
• Import taxes abolished on imported commodities
  from the US however the US maintained a 25/bu
  import tax on Canadian grains.
• Wheat prices in Toronto collapse.
• Farmers demanded protection and tariffs!
• Merchants demanded free trade!

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Tariffs

• In 1840, tariffs were levied against American
  farm produce. A victory for Canadian farmers?
  NO!
• Import taxes were small designed to put
  political pressure on US government to lower
  import taxes on Canadian goods.
• By 1840, Canada was a net export region gt no
  import protection necessary
• Upper Canadian farmers were importing US farm
  implements and really wanted free entry of these
  products
• Yet ag machinery was singled out with import
  taxes of 10-12.5 while other imported products
  were taxed at 7.5.
• Industrial interests dominated agricultural
  interests.

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Major Policy Change in England

• 1846 Repeal of Corn Laws
• 1849 Repeal of Navigation Acts
• The loss of colonial preferences and Navigation
  Laws provided strong incentive for Canadian
  farmers to seek markets in the United States.
• This had important and transformative economic,
  constitutional and political consequences.
• Major implications for transportation
  infrastructure
• St. Lawrence Canals system
• Railroads

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