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where population growth and emigration reached particularly high levels in the nine- teenth century. Church records, passport journals and official emigration statistics are the main sources in both studies.

Both authors regard migration in the light of diffusion theory. Interest in emigration and choice of destination are seen to spread in the same way as an innovation. Wester examines geographical and sociological theories on diffusion and tests them against historical evidence. The later nineteenth century saw three distinct destinations for emigra- tion from Ostrobothnia: Russia dominated in the 186Os, Sweden’s growing sawmilling industry attracted migrants in the 1870s and 188Os, while North America became the main destination in the 1890s. Wester studies emigration to North America, comparing it with patterns of migration to Sweden and within Finland. The geographical barrier of distance appears more important than social barriers to the spread of emigration in Petalax, but this is a comparatively homogeneous parish socially. Wester criticizes Haggett’s characterization of migration as relocation diffusion and considers it instead to be primarily expansion diffusion. However, Wester is looking at the spread of migra- tion departures at the place of origin, whereas Haggett is thinking of the relocation of migrants at their destinations. The term hierarchical diffusion is used by Wester in the social context rather than in relation to the central-place hierarchy more familiar to geographers. An interesting parallel to Morrill’s spatial-temporal model is Wester’s socio-temporal model of diffusion.

De Geer examines patterns of transatlantic emigration on varying geographical scales. His hypothesis is that mass emigration spread outwards from north-western Europe. An annual emigration rate of 2x, and the culmination of emigration are taken as critical indicators and are mapped to show their spread through Europe. The lack of regionalization for several European countries (for instance, France) results in a rather generalized picture, which requires further study. The spread of emigration within Norden is mapped from data for emigration innovators and their dates of emigration. A more detailed picture of the spread of emigration and barriers to its spread, such as the Finnish-Swedish language boundary in Finland, is gained from Swedish and Finnish sources. Urban spheres of influence are found to be the main disturbing factor. Mass emigration ceases as urban influence becomes dominant.

Both studies are valuable in drawing attention to the spatial component in the genera- tion of migration and choice of destination.

University of Trondheim MICHAEL JONES

The Americas

D. H. AKENSON (Ed.), Canadian Papers in Rural History, Volume 1 (Gananoque, Ontario : Langdale Press, 1978. Pp. 113. $9.95)

Professor Akenson, editor of the first volume of Canadian Papers in Rural History, tells us that the rural people in Canada had more to do with shaping the country in its formative years than its political leaders did. He excoriates academic historians for having disdainfully ignored Canada’s rural folk and he suggests that the really interesting work in rural history is being done by economists, social geographers and ethnologists. Only one of the four essays in this slim volume is written by an historian.

With whetted appetite I began with K. H. Norrie’s paper on ‘The National Policy and Prairie Economic Discrimination, 1870-1930’. The National Policy was a government programme, introduced in 1879, which created tariffs for the protection of Canadian industrial development and brought settlers into western Canada. Norrie, an economist, attacks one of the traditional historical viewpoints that prairie farmers bore the costs of industrial development in eastern Canada, that they had to endure oppressive railroad

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freight rates, and that they had to submit to an inequitable government land disposal policy which favoured other regions of Canada. The author demonstrates that the absence of the tariff would have resulted in even less rather than more industrial develop- ment on the prairies because of the power of American producers. Canadian farmers would have had to pay much higher freight rates if American railroads had penetrated the prairies. Norrie concludes that prairie farmers did not suffer discrimination under the National Policy. The econometric approach employed in this essay is intriguing and somewhat beguiling because of the many assumptions upon which the analysis depends. For example: “If one assumes that in periods of equilibrium land prices reflect the capitalized value of expected net returns, then clearly at any moment in time the impact of freight rates on farm incomes will already be reflected in lower values of farmland. Anyone immigrating or buying land in 1900, say, already would have discounted any impact of existing freight rates on his potential future income. If the rates had been lower the land prices would have been higher by an equivalent amount. Even the home- steader receiving his land for the nominal ten dollars, when deciding whether to migrate and between Canada and elsewhere, when opting for Canada would have based his decision on the expected net return given the existing freight rates”. So, economic man did exist after all! Presumably future studies in the new rural histories will tell us how prevalent this species was among immigrants flooding into the Canadian prairies in 1900, say.

The second paper is an attempt ‘to review recent work by economist historians (that is, by professional economists who have historical interests, rather than academic historians interested in economic matters) on the subject of the agricultural development of the prairie provinces and its impact upon national income and to begin to attempt a synthesis of this work’. Ankli and Litt address themselves to three questions: why was the settlement of the West delayed; what effect did prairie settlement have on Canadian per capita income during the “wheat boom” years; how expensive was it to open a farm on the prairies? The answer to the lirst question lay in the slow development of early ripening spring wheats and in the slow spread of dry-farming techniques. The second question is not so easily answered since the authors believe there was no export boom in the period between 1901 and 1911. Finally, after a survey of farm diaries, pioneer reminiscences and government reports, the authors conclude that a minimum of $1,000 was necessary, and that $2,500 was the usual sum required to open a prairie farm. Unfortunately they do not pull these three sections together and the synthesis promised in the opening sentence is not begun.

Ken Kelly examines the transformation in the marketing of farm produce from conditions of a pioneer economy to a fully fledged commercial economy in Simcoe County, southern Ontario. A barter economy based on long-term credit characterized the pioneer period. The gradual introduction of cash and the construction of a market house streamlined marketing and replaced the pedlar system whereby farmers sold their produce in town from door to door. The market house, in turn, attracted buyers and speculators from distant markets. Wholesaling activities replaced simple selling to townsfolk, particularly after the establishment of railroad connections with Toronto. Kelly documents the growth of marketing functions in the town of Barrie and the appearance of competing markets in small centres elsewhere in Simcoe County. The early development of market centres was not simply a function of distance decay; physical obstacles such as hills, streams and swamps along the road were also important. However, as transport im- proved, market hinterlands emerged which were based on travel time and the prices offered at various market centres.

In the 6nal contribution J. I. Little compares the progress of Francophone and English- speaking farmers from two townships in south-eastern Quebec during the nineteenth century. French-Canadians endured a poor reputation because their farms were small and underdeveloped compared with those of English farmers in Compton Township and Scottish Highland settlers in Winslow Township. Because French-Canadians were 31

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unwilling to emigrate from Quebec and because they had large families, there was little opportunity to increase the size of farm holdings through amalgamation. However, Professor Little does not examine the issue of credit availability: one suspects that the difficulty in obtaining capital was also a very important factor in explaining the backward state of French-Canadian farming.

Canadian Papers in Rural History is a rather uneven collection of four essays which are bound together under the general heading of rural development. The editor, in his foreword, leads us to expect exciting new work by social scientists which will put the work of traditional historians in the shade. However, although Norrie, Ankli and Litt take a critical approach to the historiography of western Canada, they have not yet fulfilled the promises made. It is also unfortunate that the essay on Quebec, the only one in this volume written by an historian, does not achieve the usual high standards in writing and reasoning of the historical profession. Nevertheless, many historical geographers will take pleasure and find new insight in the fine essay by Ken Kelly.

University of Toronto AIDANMCQUILLAN

RAYMOND H. FISHER, Bering’s Voyages: Whither and Why (Seattle and London: Uni- versity of Washington Press, 1977. Pp. xiii+217. $17.95)

Historical scholarship often progresses through successive re-evaluations of evidence. Early writers on a subject, painting with a broad brush, receive the most attention and establish the public image of events. Their successors, focusing on details and advancing knowledge in small increments, may reach fundamentally different and better-founded conclusions, yet fail to capture the public imagination. Their impact depends on the periodic combination of incremental re-evaluations into bold new syntheses.

Bering’s Voyages: Whither and Why clearly belongs to the incremental rather than to the synthetic category. The title bears reading as carefully as Professor Fisher has read his sources. His concern is not to provide a new and better account of the voyages or of the preparations for them, but rather to establish their objectives and rationales. The reader unfamiliar with factual details would do well to consult some other source, such as F. A. Golder’s Bering’s Voyages, before reading this volume.

Fisher’s main contentions are that Bering’s first voyage, in 1728, was undertaken not to establish ‘the existence or non-existence of a land connection between Asia and America’, but rather ‘to go from Kamchatka to America and reconnoiter the coast’; and that the second voyage, in 1741, was also not simply for exploration, but ‘to estabhsh Russian sovereignty in northwest America to the end of exploiting its fur and mineral resources’. His arguments on these motives are based partly on Russian materials not so far discussed in English-language publications, and partly on a most careful re- examination of ground already covered by other students of Bering’s voyages. A number of short or popular accounts in Russian escape Professor Fisher’s attention, but I know of no significant works which he has not reviewed. His analyses stand as a singularly effective demonstration of the need for care in the use of sources. All too often he is able to question his predecessors’ conclusions on the grounds of faulty translation, misreading, inadequate attention to context, or unwarranted assumptions about the decision-makers involved.

A painstaking exercise of this nature might seem to have a very narrow appeal. However, Fisher’s concern with the background to decision-making leads him into questions of wider academic interest: the foreign policy objectives of Peter the Great and his successors; the personal backgrounds of important officials; and the changing state of knowledge of North Pacific geography. The last topic is illustrated by some thirty reproductions of contemporary maps. Though not discussed explicitly, a theme of pro- found general interest to historical geographers underlies most of the book; the cumula- tion and transmission of knowledge. Hard-won knowledge of North Pacific geography