Agrarian idealism and progressive agriculture in Maritime Canada: Agricultural leadership in New Brunswick, 1895--1929

Scholars have recently done much to dispel the stereotype of Maritime conservatism. However, an implicit assumption persists that the region's rural localities, the source of large-scale out-migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, experienced a steady decline that precluded progress of any kind. This study belies that perception. Relying on data obtained from government sources as well as two of the region's most prominent contemporary agrarian journals, the Maritime Farmer and the United Farmers' Guide, it profiles the thoughts and actions of a cadre of educated, prosperous, politically influential farmers and government officials who sought to reform early twentieth-century New Brunswick agriculture along progressive lines. Adhering to an agrarian variant of idealism, New Brunswick's agricultural leaders, working through organizations such as the Farmers' and Dairymen's Association of New Brunswick, were progressives in every sense. They embraced agricultural science, partnered with the provincial Department of Agriculture to develop an extensive network of agricultural education programs, and actively promoted the efficiency-conscious business practices typical of the progressive era. Like farm leaders elsewhere, many of these men also supported populist organizations such as the Patrons of Industry and the United Farmers of New Brunswick, a tactic which forced old-line political parties to be more responsive to agrarian needs. Yet in the end, particularly as state-sponsored co-operative services supplanted farmer-owned alternatives, the idealist vision of New Brunswick's agricultural progressives offered little to those lacking the means to practise agrarian capitalism other than a rationalization as to why they should abandon the land.