Marketable Surpluses in Ontario Farming, 1860

Abstract

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?