Introduction: Agricultural Crises in the Canadas in the Nineteenth Century -- Farm Families and Markets- Peasants, Pioneers, and Profit Maximizers -- Quebec: An Agricultural Crisis and Its Critics -- Comparisons of Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Quebec and Ontario -- The Staples Thesis Expounded, Critiqued, and Modified -- Gagan and the "Critical Years" in Canada West: A Second Agricultural Crisis? -- Land-Hungry Nationalisms on the Prairies -- Railways and Homesteading on the Prairies: Sharing the Public Lands -- Native Farming on the Prairies -- Prairie Agriculture's Historiographic Debates 168 96 190 -- Conclusion: What Historiographic Debates Can Tell Us
Summary
An original and textured analysis of how agricultural developments in Quebec and Ontario had a significant and direct impact on rural settlement in the Prairies