Wheat Staple in Upper and Lower Canada

In the late 18th and Early 19th Century

The importance of wheat to the Canadian economy is not a new phenomenon. On the contrary, as far back as the 18th century and earlier, there was a significant agricultural sector. As the political environments differed in Upper and Lower Canada, though, so too did the development of agriculture, in particular, the cultivation of wheat. To understand the importance of this crop, it is necessary to understand the staple approach to Canadian economic history, and the impacts of the wheat staple in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Henry Youle Hind wrote of the importance of wheat to Upper and Lower Canada in his 1863 account of agriculture in Canada;

Among farm products, wheat takes the first rank in the husbandry of Upper

Canada. Formerly it occupied an equally prominent position in Lower Canada, but...
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